RIYADH — The Saudi Transport General Authority (TGA) has stopped granting new licenses for motorcycles to deliver orders via mobile applications until the new regulations are issued. This was announced by Saleh Al-Zuwayed, spokesman of the authority. The companies, which are engaged in the provision of delivery services on motorcycles through delivery applications had obtained license earlier during the experimental regulatory phase, Al-Zuwayed said while emphasizing that this phase has now come to an end, Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper reported. It is noteworthy that the security authorities have arrested a number of delivery bike drivers from the streets of Riyadh after finding that they did not have work permits or they committed violation of traffic safety regulations. Saudi Arabia witnessed massive expansion and flourishing of delivery services via electronic platforms following the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic. This provided vast opportunities for making investments and expanding businesses apart from generating job opportunities in this thriving sector. Al-Zuwayed revealed earlier that the growth of the light freight transport activity in Saudi Arabia was accompanied by an increase in the number of motorcycles that provided their services to the activity, indicating that the growth of the light freight transport activity in the first quarter of this year amounted to 38 percent compared to the first quarter of 2023. The number of official licenses for the light freight transport activity accounted for 300 licenses, while there are 80 companies in Saudi Arabia that deal with delivery applications, after joining the experimental environment for transportation, which was launched by the authority last year. It is noteworthy that the number of existing commercial registrations at the end of the first quarter of this year recorded a growth of 61 percent, reaching 4700 commercial registrations, compared to 2900 for the same quarter of last year. The same applies to the application development activity, which achieved a growth in the number of commercial registrations by 45 percent at the end of the first quarter of this year, reaching 11,423 commercial registrations.
