The Ministry of Commerce and Investment is going to issue soon a guide for consumer rights to enable the consumer know his rights, regarding the procedures, rules and regulations of purchasing, replacing and maintenance of goods, as well as the issues related to spare parts. MCI is working as well on the preparation of the Merchant Awareness Guide. This is within its initiative "Raising the Awareness & Satisfaction of both the Consumer and the Merchant" and this is one of MCI initiatives for the National Transformation Program 2020, aiming that the consumer and the merchant may get a high level of knowledge and awareness of their rights and duties.
The Guide of Consumer’s Rights, to be launched soon, includes five chapters namely: The Durable Goods Section, which focus on the systems of buying new goods, such as electric devices, vehicles, maintenance, spare parts, and all relevant rights. The Second Chapter focuses on the general rights of replacement and refunding. The Third Chapter includes the consumer’s awareness of the procedures, rules and regulations of sales, special offers and trade competitions. The Fourth Chapter includes the consumer’s rights, related to the legislation of foodstuff and supplies, while the Fifth Chapter focuses on the mechanism of granting the awards to the informers against any violator of the R&R.
Meanwhile, MCI is currently working on the preparation of the Merchant Awareness Guide, which gives instructions to the merchant about the most important R&R organizing the business and trade activities in the Kingdom, namely: Commercial Fraud and Commercial Concealment. MCI is planning as well to have wandering awareness show that would visit most of the cities in the Kingdom, in addition to periodic series of awareness campaigns for the consumer and the merchant through the Social media.
Within the above mentioned initiative, MCI is planning to coordinate and cooperate with companies, government authorities, private sector, universities and schools, also to participate in exhibitions and various events to promote and spread awareness concepts on a wider scale, besides having consolidated efforts with the relevant authorities to provide quality services to the consumer and merchant alike.
Protecting and enhancing the consumer’s confidence and rights is one of the Ministry's priorities. This is what MCI is endeavoring to realize through market surveillance, combating commercial fraud and the abundance of commodities of best quality. Notably, MCI inspection tours on shops and trading facilities reached (90) thousand rounds in all regions of the Kingdom during 1437 AH, resulted in the confiscation of more than 5 million counterfeited or fake commodities. In addition, the Consumer Call Center had received about (900) thousand calls, of which 300 thousand commercial violation reports had been processed.