Riyadh-26/05/2005- The General Secretariat of the Cooperative Health

Insurance Council in Saudi Arabia has convened with the 16 insurance firms, which have been licensed to operate in the Kingdom”s insurance market, SES reported.

The aim of the meeting was to review the relevant papers and qualify the said firms to begin operation in the health insurance field.

The President of the Insurance Council at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce said that the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) would issue another 10 licenses to insurance firms, during the coming period. The number of firms that had applied for a license was 32. SAMA had already issued licenses to 22 firms and it was expected that the remaining 10 firms would also be given the

licenses they had applied for.

He added that the volume of the cooperative health care insurance market was about $1.3 billion, at the present time. It is expected that this volume would rise to $2.6 billion in the next 3 years, providing more than 3000 job opportunities to Saudi young cadres.