02/27/2020
Saudi Arabia Receives Global Award For Unremitting Efforts In Advancing Digital-Related Legislative Infrastructure
Mobile World Congress (MWC2020) awarded Saudi Arabia, represented by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Government Leadership Award for its excellence and efforts in developing the best policies and regulations supporting the digital economy and stimulating investment and creativity as well as contributing to sustainable development goals, in addition to applying international best practices in transparency, inclusion of public views and organizational independence in the communications and information technology sector.
His Excellency Eng. Abdullah Al-Swaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, expressed his pleasure with the award. He said, "We dedicate this achievement and other achievements by the communications and information technology sector to our wise leaders - may Allah bless them. This global coronation would not have been achieved without their strong support and eagerness. This continuous and remarkable development and growth has made it one of the most important sources of support for the economic, cultural, and development sectors in the Kingdom.”
He also expressed his pride in the qualitative shift and the great leap that the sector witnessed in the Kingdom in a short period, describing it as also a product of a distinguished partnership with the private sector and support of all governmental agencies, which contributed to making the Kingdom leading countries in this field.
Al-Sawaha indicated that this global award is an addition to the record of the communications and information technology sector in the Kingdom that possesses an advanced digital infrastructure and legislation commensurate with the Vision 2030 and the global developments. He also noted that his award would be a catalyst to move forward in the digital march geared toward taking advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution outputs and employ them to serve the country and citizens.
It is worth mentioning that the Kingdom is one of the first countries to launch the 5G telecom service, with 6500 towers up to date, in addition to 541 stations in Makkah and Neom Airport, making the Kingdom the first in the MENA region to deploy 5G network. Because of reducing service delivery fees and balancing Broadband fees, the telecommunications market witnessed a 32% increase, accompanied by a huge spread of wireless broadband services in non-urban areas from 1% to 42. Moreover, the speed of mobile Internet has doubled to 57.46 Mbps, which contributed to the Kingdom's ranking 12 globally in this regard. The Kingdom also achieved an increase in the spread of wireless broadband service in non-urban areas (villages and hamlets) from 0.6% to 48%, together with increasing the coverage of the 4G telecom service from 83% to 91%. The speed of mobile Internet doubled about 5 times as a result of liberalizing more than 1100 GHz of spectrum and making it available to operators, making the Kingdom the second among the G20 countries, surpassing the global average by nearly 80%.