John Rice, vice chairman of General Electric Co., speaks at the 9th Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh.

The world should become smarter in financing and preserving budgets of governments and companies budgets amid the lowering trend of oil prices, says a top corporate head.

What also needs to focus on is in developing of skills to control energy assets through immediate solutions that consider future costs, diagnosing and forecasting the assets and correcting future dealing with them, John Rice, vice chairman at General Electric Co., said during a panel session on the final day of the 9th Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF) in Riyadh on Tuesday.

The session on the “Revolutions of energy: New opportunities toward a sustainable future” had panelists, including David Welch, president, Europe, Africa, Middle East Region and senior vice president for Bechtel; Frederic Abbal, executive vice president, energy business the Middle East and Africa operation of Schneider Electric; and Omar Al-Madhi, senior managing director for investments in Abdul Latif Jameel Ventures.

He pointed out that four new points are essential to achieve energy sustainability and noted that a lot remains to be done to secure development and energy sustainability, which he described as an objective of every country that looks for the prosperity of its people.

Besides financing and preserving budgets of governments and companies, Rice underscored the importance of creating an organizational and legal environment, availing smart legislations to match with the market, facilitating the attraction of investment and finance, assisting investors for long periods through clearness and transparency, and drawing a legal framework to facilitate economic growth and privatization.

Rice stressed the importance of human resources, citing that his company has partnerships with giant Saudi companies like Saudi Aramco and Saudi Electricity Company to provide training and modern education for the youngsters, particularly in the personnel area.

He also underscored the importance of flowing economic data between the private sector and government in its capacity as one way of energy sustainability for the sake of merger of companies and support of privatization of some sectors and government services.

Speaking at another session on “Entrepreneurship: Fostering an ecosystem for digital startups,” Mark Crowell, deputy head of innovation and economic development at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST), called for the support of research centers of Saudi universities specialized in promoting new business ideas, and poised to upgrade their skills and assist them to reach their goals through scientific ways.

He stressed the importance of increasing aspects of cooperation to solve the processes oriented to augment research in promising fields, noting that the Kingdom is offering its youths and business pioneers to take part in government projects infrastructure and development.

Director of Competitiveness and Projects Development at Parson Global Foundation Shankar Singham said the basic concept of index change focuses on raising the free trade edge and further organizing it to liberate many products. He noted that the Kingdom has made great strides in this regard and that ways of reaching highly competitiveness-associated capital were discussed.

He drew the attention to the importance of lowering of energy and communication products prices, particularly in view of the current fierce competitiveness witnessed by these sectors, adding that encouraging the youths to adopt pioneering ideas in the high-and-profit-taking service sectors is critically required in the current time.

Singham said contribution rather than privatization is important to give the competitiveness a chance as is the situation everywhere in the world. On the other hand, he added: “We should be able to practice free investment.” The environmental system should work in a good way and it is possible that we could find youths who practice their innovative ideas outside the traditional boundaries amid the challenges the Kingdom is facing in view of oil falling prices.

Head of MAT Forum for the Arab World projects Hala Fadhel said that the competitiveness forum has adopted as priority the pioneering mentality and openness freedom to think in a different way to innovate in the field of new smart projects, underscoring the importance of building bridges between business pioneers and government bodies to allow them contact with each other and overcome difficulties.

Panelists in session at the 9th Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh.