عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Business

Saudi Arabia to Double Radio Spectrum 10-Fold by 2025

Saudi Arabia's hosting of the webinar reflects its global position in the communications and information technology sector. (Saleh al-Ghannam)
Saudi Arabia's hosting of the webinar reflects its global position in the communications and information technology sector. (Saleh al-Ghannam)
TT
TT

Saudi Arabia to Double Radio Spectrum 10-Fold by 2025

Saudi Arabia's hosting of the webinar reflects its global position in the communications and information technology sector. (Saleh al-Ghannam)
Saudi Arabia's hosting of the webinar reflects its global position in the communications and information technology sector. (Saleh al-Ghannam)

Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it will double the radio spectrum by more than 10 times in the next five years, noting that it is currently working on preparing a future roadmap for these uses.

The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) will provide more than 10 gigahertz (GHz) to improve the commercial and innovative use of the Kingdom’s radio spectrum by 2025, according CITC Governor Mohammed al-Tamimi.

“The Saudi telecom regulator is working on setting up a new outlook for commercial and innovative use of radio spectrum,” Tamimi added on the sidelines of the three-day webinar on “Radio Spectrum for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)-2020 and beyond: Fostering Commercial and Innovative Use.”

The event, which kicked off on Tuesday, was organized by the CITC in cooperation with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah al-Swaha stressed the need for a global standard in spectrum management.

“It is so critical for us to come together as the world’s greatest thinkers and doers in the spectrum field,” he said.

“Digital infrastructure was the backbone for our resilient economies to succeed in a post-COVID world and spectrum is the lifeline,” noted Swah, who is also CITC CEO.

The webinar brought together more than 70 participants representing more than 20 world countries. Speeches were given by senior government officials, companies and international organizations in the field of information technology, including Mario Maniewicz, director of the ITU Radiocommunications Bureau, and Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Ajit Pai.

ITU Secretary General Houlin Zhao hailed in his opening speech the role played by the CITC in organizing the event, noting that the ITU recognizes the CITC as one of the most developed regulators in the world and Saudi Arabia as one of the Middle East’s largest ICT markets.

CITC Deputy Governor of Radio Spectrum Mohammed Alotaibi told Asharq Al-Awsat on the sidelines of the event that the Kingdom taken steps in recent years to improve radio spectrum management and enable its commercial and innovative use.

These steps aim at benefiting companies providing these services, so that they can improve the speeds and services, especially mobile networks.

He stressed that the radio spectrum is used by various networks and has various uses in several sectors.

The webinar hosted by the Kingdom reflects the significance of its status in the communications and information technology sector.

Most Viewed

 
 
Business

Egypt's January-March Current Account Deficit Widens to $5.1 billion

The headquarters of the Central Bank of Egypt in downtown Cairo (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The headquarters of the Central Bank of Egypt in downtown Cairo (Asharq Al-Awsat)
TT
TT

Egypt's January-March Current Account Deficit Widens to $5.1 billion

The headquarters of the Central Bank of Egypt in downtown Cairo (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The headquarters of the Central Bank of Egypt in downtown Cairo (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Egypt's current account deficit more than doubled to $5.1 billion in the January-March quarter from $2.3 billion a year earlier, central bank data showed on Sunday.

Net foreign direct investment inflows edged down to $3.7 billion from $3.8 billion in the same period of 2025, Reuters reported.

The central bank attributed the wider July-March current account deficit mainly to a larger merchandise trade deficit, partly offset by higher remittances, tourism revenue and Suez Canal receipts.

Remittances from Egyptians working abroad rose to $12.8 billion from $9.3 billion in the same quarter last year, Reuters reported.

Tourism revenue increased to $4.2 billion from $3.8 billion in the same period last year. Suez Canal revenues rose to $1 billion from $800 million a year earlier.

Oil imports increased to $5.7 billion in the same quarter, from $4.8 billion a year earlier, while exports rose slightly to $1.6 billion from $1.2 billion.

Business

Focus Turns to Building Stronger Institutions in Africa to Speed Shift to Renewable Energy

A solar power plant in Burkina Faso (Reuters)
A solar power plant in Burkina Faso (Reuters)
TT
TT

Focus Turns to Building Stronger Institutions in Africa to Speed Shift to Renewable Energy

A solar power plant in Burkina Faso (Reuters)
A solar power plant in Burkina Faso (Reuters)

Africa’s biggest clean energy challenge is shifting from building projects to building the institutions, markets and regulatory systems needed to deliver them at scale, experts say.

That challenge is emerging even as clean energy reaches a historic milestone globally.

Renewables generated 34% of the world’s electricity in 2025, overtaking coal’s 33% share. Together with nuclear power, renewables are expected to provide half of global electricity by 2030.

As industrialization, artificial intelligence and electrification push demand higher, experts say the bottleneck in transitioning to cleaner energy has shifted from technology to the systems supporting it, including funding.

Overcoming such obstacles is vital for securing access to power for the 600 million people in Africa who are yet to be connected.

“Clean energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels in virtually every part of the world,” former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, said in late June while announcing a new $285 million Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative to strengthen clean energy industries in emerging and developing economies.

“But fixable obstacles are still slowing down deployment, and with energy demand rising at an unprecedented speed, we can’t allow those obstacles to continue standing in the way,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying.

Rather than financing solar farms or wind projects directly, the initiative will invest in strengthening market design, regulatory capacity, technical expertise and industry institutions, areas increasingly viewed as essential for attracting private investment and accelerating use of renewable energy.

It reflects a growing consensus that Africa’s energy transition is constrained less by a lack of renewable resources or viable technologies than by the institutional capacity needed to turn those advantages into financially viable projects and electricity on the grid.

Many projects remain delayed by weak market design, limited grid planning, slow permitting processes and fragmented regulatory systems.

“What has been missing is not the potential, but the institutional infrastructure and capabilities to unlock it,” said Saliem Fakir, executive director of the African Climate Foundation.

“Philanthropy that targets those gaps directly is the kind of intervention that can shift the trajectory of a continent’s energy system.”

Across Africa, renewable energy costs have fallen sharply while investment appetite continues to grow. However, investors say policy uncertainty, slow permitting processes and limited regulatory capacity are hindering projects.

Wangari Muchiri, founder and chief executive of RE.Think Energy, said the commitment signals that “the next phase of the energy transition is not about proving clean energy works, it’s about removing the barriers preventing it from scaling fast enough.”

The Bloomberg initiative is looking beyond ambitious renewable energy targets to focus on helping projects attract long-term investments and connect to national grids.

“The next chapter of Africa's renewable energy story will not be only by the projects it builds, but the institutions that make these projects possible,” Muchiri said.

Business

Volkswagen CEO Looks to Avoid Plant Closures as Automaker Moves to Cut Costs

FILE PHOTO: Oliver Blume, CEO of Volkswagen AG and Porsche AG, speaks during the annual Volkswagen Group press conference in Wolfsburg, Germany March 11, 2025. REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Oliver Blume, CEO of Volkswagen AG and Porsche AG, speaks during the annual Volkswagen Group press conference in Wolfsburg, Germany March 11, 2025. REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen/File Photo
TT
TT

Volkswagen CEO Looks to Avoid Plant Closures as Automaker Moves to Cut Costs

FILE PHOTO: Oliver Blume, CEO of Volkswagen AG and Porsche AG, speaks during the annual Volkswagen Group press conference in Wolfsburg, Germany March 11, 2025. REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Oliver Blume, CEO of Volkswagen AG and Porsche AG, speaks during the annual Volkswagen Group press conference in Wolfsburg, Germany March 11, 2025. REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen/File Photo

Volkswagen's CEO indicated in comments published Sunday that he's trying to avoid closing plants as he seeks to turn around the automaker's performance.

The Wolfsburg, Germany-based company faces pressure to cut costs at home and increasingly intense competition in the lucrative Chinese market, in particular.

Last week, Volkswagen said its “fundamental realignment” over the past three years had reached its next phase, announcing plans to streamline the model lineup by up to half.

It didn't provide specifics, and questions remain over how else it will cut costs. There has been renewed speculation about the future of several plants in Germany.

“There are more intelligent solutions than closing plants,” CEO Oliver Blume told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, according to The Associated Press.

He added that a cost-cutting program in Germany already is producing effects. “We were able to improve our factory costs in Germany by an average 20% last year alone,” he said, describing that as “strong progress.”

Blume argued that Volkswagen's products are very popular, but “we just earn too little money with them. So we must continue to reduce our costs. In all kinds of costs.”