Minister of Communications and Information Technology Eng. Abdullah Al-Swaha tomorrow is scheduled to patronize the 21st annual meeting organized by the Saudi Economic Association (SEA) under the theme "Digital Economy", with the support of Saudi Aramco and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), which will be held at the convention center hall at the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) headquarters in Riyadh. Chairperson of the Board of Directors of SEA Dr. Nourah bint Abdulrahman Al-Yousef noted that the meeting aims at focusing on digital economy research as one of the elements highlighted by the National Transformation Program and the Saudi Vision 2030 out of the belief that the innovative digital technologies have created huge economic opportunities that can realize welfare for the society and, at the same time, resulted in several challenges that need thoughtful consideration. She said that digitalization in its general concept is the intensified reliance on interconnected digital services by consumers, institutions and governments, which, through the recent global economic circumstances, played an important role in helping policymakers enhance economic growth and utilizing them to improve the levels of efficiency and service productivity. She added: the quick technological development in various aspects of life resulted in a big impact in the economic sector, where technological systems accessed various economic and service sectors and contributed to realizing more advantages to these sectors, such as quick and efficient services, developing innovations and solutions that the society needs, and improving the methods of administrative and government work. The meeting will seek to highlight the concept of digital economy and solutions suggested to face the digitization challenges, such as building a local and international legal environment, in addition to highlighting the new digital transformations in the private sector, discussing contents of the sustainable development goals related to digital transformation, and issues related to commercial exchange and relevant investment with the participation of specialists and experts in the field from inside and outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The meeting also includes several aspects, such as the concept of digital economy and its relation to the economic growth, employment and economic development, which will also address challenges facing the digital economy in terms of privacy and intellectual property, and security aspects and what they require of a local and international legal environment. The meeting will also tackle issues related to digital transformation in the public and private sectors, especially that the Saudi Vision 2030 is concerned with stimulating the private sector to develop the level of used technologies in its various activities and other sectors of the Saudi economy in general.
