Tribe Techie has learnt that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is planning to spend $20 billion developing digital infrastructure over the next five years.
The minister of commerce Majid Al-Kassabi said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday that this new development is to support the digital infrastructure sector.
The kingdom has already invested $25 billion in the past five years “to make sure Saudi Arabia is ready for automation”, he said, in a panel discussion titled “Learning from Services”.
He estimated the current volume of trade within the Saudi services sector in 2023 at $144 billion with “an impressive annual growth” rate of 7 percent.
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“Saudi Arabia is going through an unprecedented transformation through its Vision 2030”, he said.
“We have created new sectors – tourism, mining, culture, entertainment, logistics – and we’re promoting and really driving these sectors to grow, and this has created a lot of opportunities for small and medium enterprises.”
He also highlighted the creation of new government agencies, such as the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property, which began operating in 2020. “The whole idea is to make sure the business and investment landscape is more attractive,” he said.
Globally, he said, the digital infrastructure and services sector accounts for 65 percent of GDP, 60 percent of FDI, and is a “powerful source of employment, especially for women”.
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