I wish to extend my best wishes and congratulations to King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz, Second Deputy Premier and the Saudi people on the occasion of 83rd Saudi National Day on Monday. The focus of King Abdullah, supported by the Crown Prince and the Second Deputy Premier on Education, Infrastructure Development, Economic growth with Stability and Security has accomplished Saudi Arabia as one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Rapid formulation and implementation of social schemes and economic projects in the fields of general education, higher education, technical education, primary health care, public housing, extension of two holy mosques, railways, agricultural transformation, information and communication technology, government online services, on-going infrastructure projects of Mataf and Economic cities have brought about remarkable changes throughout the Kingdom and transformed it into a major socio-economic hub in the Middle East. King Abdullah has taken many decisions to improve the standards of living of citizens, and to support allocations for services' sectors. The initiatives that are being taken by King Abdullah in number of developmental programs and projects is commendable. The Kingdom has made major strides in illiteracy eradication over the past 40 years. “The Kingdom brought down the level of illiteracy in the country from 60 percent in 1972 to 4 percent in 2013,” according to the Ministry of Education on the occasion of the World Day of Illiteracy Eradication. The Kingdom also showed the achievements of the Saudi economy, such as ranking 5th internationally in terms of levels of financial freedom and 3rd in the field of taxation. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the fastest growing economies, with a 6.8 percent rate of growth in 2012. The Kingdom's economy came in 18th in the competitiveness index issued by the World Economic Forum 2013. The forum also ranked the Kingdom 31st in terms of development and use of information and communication technology on a global scale. I wish King Abdullah Ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince Salman Ibn Abdulaziz, Second Deputy Premier and the people peace and prosperity. Mir Gazanfar Ali Zaki, Jeddah II. We extend our sincere National Day greetings to all nationals of this great country. We assure them that the joyous feeling among the expatriate communities is not second to anything they experience. Having spent a major part of their lives in this blessed country and most of them having been born and educated here, the attachment to this land for them has grown leaps and bounds. They join the locals in each celebration of National Day. We take this opportunity to extend our sincerest greetings to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, his government and the friendly people of this land and we pray to Allah to bless them all with continued peace and prosperity! S.H.Moulana, Riyadh
