Savola honoured for business forum support

Jeddah, May 31, 2012

The Savola Group, a leading company in the field of food, retail, and plastic industry, was recently honoured for its diamond sponsorship of the Business Ethics Forum held at the Jeddah Hilton Hotel.

Mahmoud Abdul Ghaffar, Savola’s board secretary and chief of Corporate Affairs accepted the award from Adil Fakieh, Minister of Labour.

Savola’s participation in the Forum reflects the importance of work ethics and values with the Group’s various business lines and sectors.

The Savola Group, represented by Faten Al Yafi, senior executive director of CSR and PR, presented a paper titled “Transparency, Responsibility, Ethics” underscoring the importance of corporate social responsibly within the Group by activating a series of ethics and values which have enabled Savola to create a strong internal culture and a distinctive way of doing business.

Al Yafi said that there are three key factors that support this notion:  “Covering a major and diverse part of society, reinforcing a robust internal structure, and building the image of the organization.”

Al Yafi continued, “Social Responsibility in the Kingdom underwent five critical phases that began with realization, then importance, then reinforcement, then development, and finally sustainability.”

Al Yafi also indicated that 2006 was a year of transformation for CSR in Saudi Arabia and this picked up momentum since then.

According to Al Yafi’s presentation, statistics revealed that CSR is growing at an average of 40 per cent per annum where 80 per cent of the support is coming from the private sector.  Around 500 companies and organisations in Saudi Arabia are active in some form or other in various CSR programmes. – TradeArabia News Service

Tags: Saudi Arabia | Jeddah | Savola Group | Business Ethics Forum |