Buraidah-The Buraidah Dates Festival witnessed record trading of SR230 million ($61 million) in dates in the first 12 days, the organizing committee said.

The Statistics and Evaluation team in the festival monitored more than 15,000 cars laden with dates in the Haraj square.

According to some farmers and those who specialize in selling and buying dates, this financial value represents nearly 30 percent of sales and marketing of dates in Buraidah.

They noted that many purchasing and selling deals that take place outside the dates’ city were excluded in order to be marketed and sold for factories and commercial companies.

In addition to that, large quantities of dates are being exported outside the Kingdom, and the purchasing value of dates amount to billions of Saudi Riyals at the end of the harvest season.

The festival’s Executive Manager Abdulaziz Al-Mahoos explained that the numbers revealed are exact and are being monitored and analyzed on a daily basis by a specialized statistics team that works in two shifts – morning and night.

The team, according to Mahoos, monitors and follows the number of vehicles that enter the Haraj square. They record the number of containers in each vehicle and calculate the value of each deal recorded through the official invoices between buyers and sellers.

Mahoos said that during the first two weeks, the festival recorded a financial value that exceeded SR230 million.

He stressed the critical job done by the specialized statistics team that provides the festival’s administration with a huge database, which is later analyzed and sorted based on specific data streams and schedules.

In a common matter, “Thilal al-Nakheel” event, which coincides with Buraidah Dates Festival in As Sabbakh farms, and is organized by Secretariat of Qassim region, has boosted the urban tourism concept that the General Authority for Tourism and National Heritage is trying to consolidate for all the economic and social benefits it provides.

The event has attracted thousands of families from the region and outside and from some of the GCC states.