RIYADH — Saudi Arabia ranked second globally in the field of corporate cybersecurity and jumped nine places to become No. 12 among the G20 countries in the e-government development index, according to the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY). The high-ranking reflects the remarkable achievements the Kingdom has made ever since it embarked on ambitious Vision 2030 launched by Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman. The unprecedented progress and achievements in many other vital sectors too have put the Kingdom in a prominent position on the world map. The Kingdom ranked 7th globally in financing technical development in WCY, which is a yearly report published by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD). According to WCY, the Kingdom ranked 8th among the G20 countries and 27 globally in the digital infrastructure index within the e-government development index, climbing more than 40 places, and 10th globally in average mobile Internet speeds that exceeded 66.54 Mbps. Moreover, the Saudi government has won the Government Leadership Award 2020 instituted by the International Telecommunications Union. It is noteworthy that Saudi Arabia's National Committee for Digital Transformation has recently issued the half-yearly report for the year 2020 that reviewed the goals and achievements of the digital transformation, as the committee worked under the directives and support of the Crown Prince. The report sheds light on the most important digital service achievements in all government and service sectors in the Kingdom. The report focused on highlighting the efforts of government agencies in the process of digital transformation in various fields, which contributed to creating a digital infrastructure that keeps pace with changing times and meets the requirements of becoming an ambitious nation with a thriving digital society within the framework and objectives of the Vision 2030. The report includes a large number of achievements and initiatives in digital transformation in all vital sectors and areas. These include the smart government sector, where the number of documentation processes carried out through the "Unified National Platform GOV.SA" reached more than 185 million, and the number of "Tawakkalna" application users exceeded seven million, while the Saudi "Tabaud" application ranked third in the world in employing modern technologies to contain coronavirus pandemic. The value of contributions to the Joodeskan initiative reached more than SR300 million. All these have had a tremendous positive impact on Saudi society. The Saudi Customs launched the TIR (Transports Internationaux Routiers) system, which seeks to facilitate trade through borders, as the system reduced the time spent for trucks through the ports by 40 percent, while the number of beneficiaries of the national platform for donations launched by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development reached more than 250,000. The transactions through the Etimad platform, launched by the Ministry of Finance, reached more than two million, and payments made through the application of Zakat from the General Authority of Zakat and Tax reached more than 200,000. The Baladi platform provides full municipal services under the smart cities sector while in the tourism and digital culture sector, the Tourist Visa Portal provides visas to the beneficiaries within 3-5 minutes. In the field of financial technology, the Wathaq platform was launched, which automates all procedures of issuing bank guarantees. In the digital health sector, the report noted, around 53 million appointments were booked through the Mawid application and more than 1.8 million medical consultations were provided to citizens by the Sihha application. In the education sector, there were 34 million sessions held by the unified education system for more than one million beneficiaries. In the justice sector, nearly 1.4 million people benefited from the Najiz justice services platform, while more than 39,000 operations were carried out through the mobile notary service, and through which over 119,000 judicial sessions were documented. The Public Prosecution adopted a strategy of "Paperless Prosecution" to convert all procedures related to it to digital services. In the sector of digital infrastructure and capabilities, a total of 8,377 5G towers have been established in all regions of the Kingdom, and more than 8.5 million citizens have benefited from the Digital Giving initiative to spread digital knowledge and develop digital capabilities, the report pointed out.
