RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is working to launch a national strategy for space and a space company that will allow for comprehensive government investment and private sector contribution to the field, said the minister of communications and information technology.
Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of LEAP, Abdullah Al-Swaha said the Kingdom is making significant strides in the fields of space exploration and women’s empowerment.
He said after sending the first Arab Muslim woman to the international space station, the Kingdom is now looking to the next phase of its development in this sector.
There are two main phases that Saudi Arabia will be focusing on, with details to be announced in the coming national strategy, he informed. First, Al-Swaha said, is the upstream, which is space exploration.
The second will be downstream, he noted, saying: “In the downstream, we will focus on three main markets: space telecommunications, to connect the unconnected world — we have a golden opportunity to fill this void in the Kingdom and our brothers in Africa and Asia. The second is navigation, which according to studies, affects 7 percent of the local production, and we, therefore, aim to localize this. Lastly, is carbon reduction through earth observation to be able to track emissions.”
Al-Swaha highlighted that Saudi Arabia has also become the “greatest success story” in the field of women’s empowerment.
In the field of technology and innovation, the nation’s baseline before the launch of Vision 2030 was 7 percent, he informed.
Today, seven years later, women’s participation in the field starts at 35 percent, the minister pointed out, saying: “We have surpassed the median of Silicon Valley, which is 27 percent. We have surpassed the median of the EU, which is 22 percent.”
This comes as a testament to the “great movement” that is occurring in the nation, under the patronage of the crown prince, to revolutionize all sectors, the minister noted.
Further highlighting the momentum that the Kingdom is witnessing, the minister said that Saudi Arabia’s digital economy is currently one of the 10 fastest worldwide in terms of the speed of advancement and volume of achievement.
He underscored that while the global digital economy is growing by approximately 2 to 3 percent, in Saudi Arabia, it has grown by nearly 10 percent since the launch of Vision 2030, adding: “When you grow three times the global average, you realize that the scale of this achievement is great.”
Al-Swaha highlighted that, for the first time, “the Kingdom is receiving its fair share” from venture capital funding, with a growth size of 33 percent compared to last year.
The technical and digital market in Saudi Arabia has also grown “exceptionally well,” the minister added.
He said: “In general, communications markets are called defensive markets, they grow in parallel with the growth of domestic product. The telecommunications market in the Kingdom grew twice this rate, and the technical market grew three times this rate. From a sum of SR113 billion ($30 billion) to more than SR183 billion with a growth rate of more than 9 percent, this is considered a historic achievement.”
