Aramco has been spending $12 billion every year on more than 4,000 SMEs (small and medium enterprises) either directly or through its supply chain through Total Value Add Program (iktva).
Aramco’s iktva is a landmark initiative that catalyses localisation in the energy and energy-related industries, leveraging the economic role of SMEs and increasing their contribution to the GDP, and adds thousands of quality job opportunities, according to VP for Procurement & Supply Chain Management at Saudi Aramco Abdulaziz al-Abdulkarim.
This is being mainly done by Aramco to highlight the importance of creating an ecosystem that enables SMEs to flourish and grow in order to achieve a sustainable economic development in the kingdom, stated the VP.
Through iktva, Aramco plans to deliver a world-class, locally-sourced supply chain in the Kingdom, with an overarching objective of achieving 70 percent of locally supplied content by 2021, he added.
He indicated that this is in line with the goals and objectives of Vision 2030 that aspires to raise the contribution of local content in industry and to foster the economic role of SMEs as engines for innovation and sustainability.
Currently, SMEs contribute around 20 percent of the Kingdom’s gross domestic product. Saudi Vision 2030 has set an initial target to increase that share to 35 percent.
