Prince Saud bin Thunayan at the opening of the STM7 meeting in Jubail Industrial City

Prince Saud delivered a speech in which he pointed out that SABIC is a product of "Passion for Innovation", in terms of the thinking of those who founded the company and in terms of the creative effort which has contributed to the increasing accomplishments and milestones, leading towards its position today as one of the world's largest petrochemical companies. This has culminated in many technical innovations. He affirmed that the meeting is a new approach where the minds of SABIC employees compete to achieve further innovation that increases SABIC's national contributions, strengthen the company's competitive edge in global markets, and enables it to confront mounting international business challenges arising from rapid change seen by the petrochemical industry.

Mohamed Al-Mady, SABIC Vice Chairman & CEO addressed the meeting and said, "SABIC adopts creative work, and considers innovation a widespread and systematic process, based on tools, rules and disciplines. SABIC has spared no effort in making this happen, being aware that the objective of innovation is to achieve higher added value to our customers, higher returns for our shareholders, and in addition to fully preserving the safety and health of the environment.

"Innovation in the field of petrochemical and chemical industries requires patience, long-term efforts and dedication towards creative work in order to achieve the desired goals in the framework of one integrated system."

SABIC has been preparing for this meeting over a considerable period of time in view of the importance attached to it as a forum for ideas and innovation. This will in turn help SABIC drive forward its development and implementation of its strategies and future plans. The meeting is held every two years. Earlier meetings have contributed to putting forward many of creative visions that have contributed to developing performance and increasing productivity. The aim of the current meeting is to improve operations and processes, develop products and achieve the optimum utilization of equipment in managing more advanced processes, and help develop reliability.

Speaking at the meeting are selected specialists from SABIC and prominent lecturers from outside the company. The participants will also discuss a number of working papers involving: processes and products, reliability, electrical and control systems, safety, health and environment, quality and technical analysis, business management and information technology.

Mr. Ram Chan, a prominent speaker in the area of research and technology, presented a working paper titled: "The Missing Part of Leadership, Execution". He addressed the elements of successful execution in the light of the experiences of some major industrial companies, which have materialized global creative ideas into reality.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Prince Saud honored employees from its global organization who provided the best working papers.

In addition, companies winning SABIC awards for the encouragement of creativity were honored.

Finally, Prince Saud opened an exhibition which was attended by a number of major leading local and international companies in the area of technologies and equipment.