Consumer Goods in Saudi Arabia

Consumer Goods in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are final goods and services that benefit consumers and satisfy their needs according to their purchasing powers. This type of commodity is classified according to the use of the production materials from which the commodities are made and includes food, non-food, and service commodities. The second type is the intermediate consumption goods, including feed, live animals, and construction goods.

Regulating the performance of consumer goods has developed leading to the division of goods into groups, and the adoption of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a statistical method used to measure the average variation in the prices of goods and services between two given periods. CPI is a measure of the change in terms of prices of some goods and services consumed by society segments in their daily lives over a while (the current period) relative to a period called the base period.

The Ministry of Commerce continued its efforts to regulate the markets and keep abreast of developments in commodity activity, launching CPI in 2010, to acquaint citizens with the prices of supply commodities monitored by the ministry offices to provide information to the consumer about price ranges and their variations according to daily and weekly reports. Before this initiative, Riyadh Province Municipality launched the Price Index in early 2009, in coordination with the Ministry of Commerce.

CPI offers consumers multiple purchasing options during the period in question, contributes to price control, illustrates the price changes of several basic supply commodities monitored by the ministry, and electronically provides the ministry with the prices through many trade centers over a specific period to provide consumers with information about the price levels of supply commodities, acquaint them with prices, and enable them to compare the prices at different points of sale to choose the most appropriate ones in terms of the price level.

CPI includes comprehensive lists of the average prices of food and other supply commodities. It also includes prices of food supply commodities in several major cities in the Kingdom. Makkah al-Mukarramah, al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Abha, and Tabuk are the cities selected for this purpose.

The Ministry of Commerce continued to develop its tools and methods for monitoring and following up on consumer goods. In 2011, it launched the service of publishing the prices of several basic supply commodities in several trade centers in twenty other governorates in the Kingdom, in addition to seven major cities where prices are labeled every day.

This step reflected a development in the weekly publishing of the average prices of these goods and aimed to enable the consumer in those governorates to view the prices of several actual supply commodities in several trade centers. The total of governorates that publish the actual prices of basic supply commodities daily in a number of their trade centers is twenty-seven governorates.

This was preceded by measures to regulate markets and control the prices of consumer goods to protect consumers' rights and enable them to determine their purchasing options. Before that, the ministry launched many services to develop CPI, including the launch of the index browsing service via mobile phones, local newspapers, and the Saudi TV channel, al-Eqtisadiah.

The General Authority for Statistics launched the Commodity and Services Average Prices Program in the Kingdom, which aims to publish the retail prices of goods and services along with the changes occurring from time to time relevant to a list of goods and services of interest to the consumer. The specifications of these commodities and services are precisely defined to calculate their average prices within one city at the level of the Kingdom. The program covers key economic sectors, including food products, beverages, tobacco, textiles, agriculture and fisheries, and the raw materials and minerals sector.

The Ministry of Commerce has defined several general rights for the consumer, including having access to the following commercial information on each product: size, volume, weight, quantity, capacity, production and manufacturing date, the country in which it was made or manufactured, the materials used in manufacturing, product cost, and the producer's or manufacturer's name.

Consumer’s rights also include purchasing products offered for sale without conditions or restrictions by the seller, not connecting the purchase of one commodity with another, taking the change, no matter how insignificant, and not feeling forced to buy further items for the value of the change, such as gum, paper napkins, or other products that the consumer may not want.

The general consumer’s rights also include the latest precautions regarding the use of a product display for sale. Such warnings must be indicated clearly on the item, so the consumer may receive a refund and return goods if the warnings turn fake, defective, or have a counterfeit trademark. In addition, the item must comply with approved technical regulations.

The relevant entities have established laws and regulations for organizing events to promote consumer goods. The National Program for Exhibitions and Conferences has adopted policies and procedures and set more than twenty conditions for organizing consumer exhibitions, including that the applicant to implement the exhibition should be a company or institution licensed to organize exhibitions.

The conditions also include that the number of licensed exhibitions held by the organizer must not exceed six exhibitions a year and that the application and fees paid for a license should be submitted seven days before the exhibition. Furthermore, the organizer shall be fully accountable for the exhibition before the National Program for Exhibitions and Conferences. The license may not be subcontracted or sold to third parties, and the duration of the show should not exceed thirty days.