According to Arab News, Al-Ruwais stated at a forum in Riyadh yesterday that “spending on telecom IT reached more than SR130 billion in 2016” with another SR50 billion coming from capital investment. He added the volume of spending on the telecoms and IT sector, which contributes to 6% of the Kingdom’s GDP, should grow to SR138 billion ($36.8bn) in 2017.
The telecom and IT sectors are key pillars of the National Transformation Program (NTP) 2020 in the country, where components of Vision 2030 include the telecom sector through infrastructure, broadband, technology innovation and investment in the digital economy.
Al-Ruwais was appointed as the CITC governor in December 2015. CITC has set up a new licensing system and awarded operators with unified telecoms licences, by doing so it will allow increased competition and subscriber options through enhancing network efficiency and cutting costs.
