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Experts to Asharq Al-Awsat: Saudi Intellectual Property Strategy to Generate Initiatives, Attract Quality Investments

Saudi Arabia moves towards diversifying sources of income and growing the national economy through non-oil output (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Saudi Arabia moves towards diversifying sources of income and growing the national economy through non-oil output (Asharq Al-Awsat)
    Riyadh - Mohammed al-Mutairi
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Experts to Asharq Al-Awsat: Saudi Intellectual Property Strategy to Generate Initiatives, Attract Quality Investments

Saudi Arabia moves towards diversifying sources of income and growing the national economy through non-oil output (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Saudi Arabia moves towards diversifying sources of income and growing the national economy through non-oil output (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has announced the launch of the National Intellectual Property Strategy to support the Kingdom’s economy based on innovation and creativity.

According to analysts, the Strategy will push the Saudi economy towards growth and development, enhance the domestic product, bring quality investments to the Kingdom, and generate initiatives and job opportunities.

“This strategy will promote the Saudi economy’s growth and development as it will lead towards innovation and the discovery of hidden potentials in the knowledge, digital and bold economy,” said Muhammad bin Dulaim Al-Qahtani, Professor of Economics at King Faisal University.

“It will also push Saudi sectors towards competitiveness and strengthen the Kingdom’s external position in preserving intellectual property rights,” added Al-Qahtani.

Al-Qahtani also noted that the Strategy will also attract dreamers and innovation lovers to Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, the Strategy will make the Kingdom compete with developed countries in embracing ideas and innovators.

Al-Qahtani indicated that the strategy will lead the Saudi economy towards knowledge, pointing out that the knowledge economy is equivalent to triple the regular economy.

“The launch of the Strategy will contribute to supporting economic growth and social development and protecting the national economy from losses estimated at more than SAR 11 billion ($2.9 billion),” said Essam Mustafa Khalifa, member of the Saudi Economic Association.

Most of the loss referred to by Khalifa can be traced back to the piracy of computer programs and literary works and commercial fraud.

“The Strategy will also contribute to supporting and unifying efforts of sectors concerned with intellectual property rights, including the judicial authorities,” added Khalifa.

Khalifa stressed that Saudi Arabia seeks to produce legislation regarding various types of intellectual property, especially that the Kingdom is a member of the main international conventions related to intellectual property rights.

He pointed out that the Kingdom enacted several previous laws in the field of intellectual rights protection, including the trademark system, the commercial fraud prevention system, the patent system and copyright protection, and the trade names system.

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US Labor Market Slows Despite Job Adds in May

Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
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US Labor Market Slows Despite Job Adds in May

Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

The United States added 139,000 jobs in May, more than expected but pointing to a labor market that continues to slow.

The employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics exceeded forecasts for about 120,000 payroll gains but marked a decline from the revised 147,000 jobs added in April. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, remaining near historic lows.

Stocks surged at Friday's open, with all three major indexes gaining about 1%.

In return, US government borrowing costs climbed as investors anticipated the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates higher for longer, making it less attractive to hold US debt.

The BLS report showed job losses in the federal government continued to pile up, with that sector shedding 22,000 roles in May alone.

The federal workforce is down by 59,000 since January, largely due to sweeping cuts by the Trump administration and multibillionaire tech executive Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency project.

Even as the economy continued to add jobs at a relatively steady clip last month, the report showed other signs of a weakening labor market.

The ratio of employed workers to the total population fell to 59.7%, its lowest since the pandemic.

An alternative measure of unemployment that includes “discouraged” workers, or those who have stopped looking for work, returned to a post-pandemic high of 4.5%.

But President Donald Trump cheered the numbers, posting on his Truth Social platform Friday morning: “AMERICA IS HOT! SIX MONTHS AGO IT WAS COLD AS ICE! BORDER IS CLOSED, PRICES ARE DOWN. WAGES ARE UP!”

Trump had urged Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to slash interest rates by a full percentage point.

“Too Late' at the Fed is a disaster!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

In reality, employers added 212,000 jobs in November, unemployment was at 4.1%, the 12-month average of hourly pay gains have softened from nearly 4.2% then to 3.9% in May, and both the labor force participation rate and the employment-to-population ratio were slightly higher.

Only consumer prices have meaningfully cooled, ticking down from an annual inflation rate of 2.7% in November to 2.3% in April, the latest month with available data.

Analysts at Capital Economics called the May jobs report “not as good as it looks.”

Still, they wrote in a note Friday, “it shows that tariffs are having little negative impact” and added that the Federal Reserve is likely to continue holding interest rates steady “while it assesses the effects of policy changes on the economy.”