GIVEN its status as one of the largest infrastructure markets in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, Saudi Arabia is actively pushing innovation and investment into this booming development sector. The banking sector is one of the most crucial elements in successfully developing a country's infrastructure. Leveraging its status as one of Saudi Arabia's leading banking organizations, ANB is actively supporting national and municipal projects. Highlighting its commitment to offering tailored banking solutions and support, not just at a national level but also to municipal development efforts, ANB supported the Municipality Excellence and Expansion Summit organized by multinational business facilitation company Naseba. The summit, endorsed by the Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, brought together key stakeholders from across the Kingdom to discuss and develop the roadmap to enhancing municipality-led infrastructure projects. Ali Alomran, deputy head of technology services, Arab National Bank noted "Given our commitment to delivering excellence to all of our customers in Saudi Arabia including ministries and municipalities, we are proud to associate ourselves with this platform that will help connect the different infrastructure initiatives through a shared development vision." ANB was joined at the summit by other Municipality leaders such as the Mayor of Makkah, Dr. Osama Bin Fadhel Al-Bar, who was part of the panel discussing "The role of PPP in developing innovative cities through municipal management". Jean Philippe, production director at Naseba, commented: "This summit is bringing together all of the key stakeholders to support transforming Saudi Arabia's municipalities, and enabling development authorities to deliver excellence to their citizens." IoT propels Kingdom cities into the future The Kingdom has embarked on a journey of economic, social and political reforms. As a part of the effort to implement these reforms the Kingdom has allocated $500 billion to infrastructure development by 2020, including building and developing cities based on the smart cities model. As the entity responsible for the administration of municipalities across the Kingdom, the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) is also investing its resources into Internet of Things — both in terms of its infrastructure and technology, some of which has already been rolled out. The ministry has backed and endorsed the Summit 2016 to build new business relationships between key decision makers from the Kingdom's municipalities and the service providers equipped to deliver ICT project management and execution solutions. The summit featured panel discussions on urban planning, infrastructure, Internet of Things and smart city development by representatives of prominent organizations like ANB, Mobily, STC, and EY. According to Hisham Hany Elkeraby, Municipalities & Cities Sector Leader, Advisory, EY MENA, "In emerging economies, smart investments can swiftly scale up productive capacity, better address the traffic, population and environmental challenges of rapid urbanization and support longer-term economic objectives. Smart technology investment also yields a much higher rate of return than investing in traditional infrastructure projects. This is due to various multiplier effects, such as the resulting network of connected and ICT-enabled infrastructure. In turn, this fosters new consumer and business behaviors, which, themselves, open up employment opportunities." Leveraging the power of technology, Saudi Arabia aims to implement unique digital platforms in the fields of healthcare, infrastructure, society, economy, governance and environment to pave the way for its transformation into a truly futuristic smart city. Perhaps the most interesting development in Saudi Arabia's development plan will be smart buildings that use Internet of Things (IoT) technology. "Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 has laid the groundwork for future developments in municipal excellence and smart transformation throughout the Kingdom. Supporting this vision is a necessity for any organization that operates in Saudi Arabia or aims to build a successful base here. We are proud to facilitate the government's initiatives through the Municipality Excellence and Expansion Summit, and hope to see other organizations join the drive towards a more interconnected, technology
