The Shura Council agrees to Friday-Saturday weekend for Saudis. After Oman, the kingdom is the sixth and last member of the Gulf Co-operation Group to implement the measure. The reform, decided by King Abdullah, aligns Saudi Arabia's stock exchanges with the rest of the world and is welcomed by the business community. Conservative Muslims complain that "We will be copying the Jews and the Christians".

Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Saudi Arabia's Shura Council has accepted to change the traditional Saudi weekend from Thursday-Friday to Friday-Saturday. Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud had called for changes to the kingdom's official workweek to Sunday through Thursday, citing "lost economic opportunities" from being out of synch with the rest of the world.

"We expect the impact to be positive on the Saudi economy; we think our business will be easier," said Abdulrahman Al-Ubaid, a former vice president of the world's biggest petrochemical company, Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC).

The Saudi stock exchange, Saudi central bank, and other financial institutions and government ministries will move to a Friday and Saturday weekend starting on June 29, the royal decree said.

The change "will increase interface with the rest of the world; now things will move faster," said Ali Al-Ajmi, a former vice president at Saudi Aramco.

The decision to change weekends comes after a lot of soul-searching. In the largest Gulf state and custodian of the holy places of Makkah and Madinah, the more conservative elements in the kingdom had always opposed the break with tradition.

Friday is the Muslim day of prayer, a time for the faithful go to the mosque. Thursday, like Saturday in the West, was the day of rest that came before.

"We will be copying the Jews and the Christians," Saudi businessman and change opponent Abdul Rahman Al Jeraisy said in 2007, when the king's Shura advisory council first considered the change.

"In terms of religious opposition, yes there might be some, but there's absolutely no unanimity in opposing this course among religious people," said Saudi sociologist Khalid al-Dakhil.

In taking this step, King Abdullah could in fact count on a broad consensus among foreign and Saudi oil companies executives.

Indeed, some Saudi companies, including food producer Savola, had already announced their intention to change their own weekend to Friday and Saturday to improve their coordination with regional partners.

• saudi
• arabia
• weekends
• change
• resistance