The Ministry of Communications is signing a convention with the Bank for Social Development to launch the Emerging Tech portfolio

Sunday-2019-05-26

In the presence and sponsorship of the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Engineer Abdullah Bin Amer al-Sawah, and the Minister of Labour and Social Development, President of the Board of Directors of the Bank for Social Development, Engineer Ahmed Bin Suleiman Al-Rajjai, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology signed a cooperation agreement with the Bank for Social Development to support, finance and catalyse projects and activities of emerging techniques.

Through the creation of a portfolio of up to 1 billion rials, in line with the Kingdom ' s 2030 vision of diversifying national income sources, boosting the Saudi economy ' s march and creating more career opportunities for the children and daughters of the country.

The Convention was signed by the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology for the Industry of Technology and Digital Capacities, Dr. Ahmed Ben Hamdan Al-Thani, and the Director-General of the Social Development Bank, Professor Ibrahim Bin Hamad Al-Rashid, in the presence of a number of officials from both sides.

In a statement on this occasion, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Engineer Abdullah Al-Swahih, stressed that the Convention was among the Ministry ' s directions for the settlement of modern techniques, for the strengthening of the Kingdom ' s position and making it one of the world ' s leading digital centres, noting in this regard the Permanent Ministry ' s endeavour to create a attractive and prosperous environment for national technical personnel, and to encourage digital innovation to achieve the desired digital transformation of digital society, a digital future, a digital government and a better digital economy.

The Engineer explained that the Convention was aimed at contributing to the creation and launching of small enterprises in emerging techniques, accelerating and increasing their investment, providing financing solutions to national talents wishing to invest in these techniques, as well as increasing market confidence, helping small enterprises to access digital clouds and smarts, and explaining that the Convention was providing financing for projects in various modern techniques and automobiles, including liquidity and technology access.

The Minister of Communications and Information Technology commended the meaningful and fruitful cooperation with the Ministry of Labour and Social Development in many areas aimed at settling the functions of the telecommunications and information technology sector, providing an appropriate and catalytic environment for Saudi entrepreneurs in the field of technology and innovation to develop technical solutions and products that serve the overall development projects of our precious kingdom, stressing the importance of all governmental and private actors working together to support and develop small and medium enterprises in different areas to increase their contribution to local economic output by 2030 per cent to 20 per cent to the country.

For his part, the Minister of Labour and Social Development, President of the Board of Directors of the Bank for Social Development, Engineer Ahmed Al-Rajjay, explained that the Convention was characterized by the provision of a package of financial products and non-financial services for emerging and small-scale enterprises to benefit from opportunities in digital projects in the emerging technology sector, with the aim of generating and qualifying 3500 small-scale projects in target sectors of technical and economic utility value beyond the billion riyal.

The Engineer stated that the Convention served strategic objectives in parallel with the Kingdom ' s Vision 2030 m, to increase the contribution of small and emerging enterprises to GDP and to increase resettlement in the communications sector, indicating that the Bank would provide a range of qualitative financing solutions to enable emerging and small enterprises to benefit from the opportunities arising from this Convention.

It should be noted that the portfolio is aimed at different government sectors relevant to the support and development of technology, telecommunications and information technology investors, private enterprises and companies working in this area, as well as technical speeds and incubators, smart applications developers, technical business leaders and leaders, and individuals wishing to invest in emerging technology.
It should be noted that the Bank for Social Development has benefited from it since its establishment in 1391 and so far, over 2. 6 citizens and citizens of the various services and products of the Bank, the lending size of SAR 105 billion in social finance and business finance, and the broader economic empowerment portal is effective at the Kingdom level.