Saudi Arabia, World Bank discuss stronger digital economy growth partnership

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Al-Swaha met with a delegation from the Executive Board of the World Bank Group in Riyadh, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.

The minister discussed strengthening partnership and cooperation with the World Bank in developing digital economy policies and digital government, promoting innovation, and adopting artificial intelligences.

He said that progress achieved under Vision 2030 was reflected in the World Bank’s Digital Government Index, which placed the Kingdom third in the world.

Saudi Arabia has also seen a rise in the number of skilled digital workers in the sector from 150,000 to 354,000 men and women, along with an increase in women’s participation from 7 percent to 35 percent, which is higher than the average of the G20, the EU, and Silicon Valley, he added.

Al-Swaha highlighted the Kingdom’s efforts to digitize and transform government business and services to the cloud, a move that has attracted $4.4 billion in investment from major international companies to establish cloud service areas in 2023 alone.

Saudi Arabia has also stimulated innovation and enabled digital entrepreneurship to become the first destination for venture capital in the region, with funding of almost $1 billion.

The visiting World Bank delegation also met with a team from the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen to review the joint transport development projects being implemented in the country.

The Saudi team outlined the program’s development projects and initiatives aimed at improving education, health care, water, energy, transportation, agriculture and fisheries, and capacity building of government institutions across Yemen.