RIYADH — The Communications & Information Technology Commission (CITC) in Saudi Arabia has signed a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Huawei aimed at strengthening the Kingdom’s digital economy and ICT talent ecosystem in line with the ambitions of Vision 2030. The MoU was signed by Ahmad Aljarboa, deputy governor for Corporate Support Sector at CITC, and Terry He, CEO of Huawei Tech Investment Saudi Arabia, and was witnessed by Dr. Mohammed Altamimi, governor of CITC, and Charles Yang, president of Huawei Middle East. The memorandum will see Huawei become a strategic partner to CITC in a number of areas. This includes collaboration on knowledge exchange, HR capacity development, and ICT industry collaboration more broadly, with Huawei sharing its experience and best practices with CITC in the future. Amongst those will be joint trainings for CITC officials focused on emerging technologies such as, AI, cloud, and others. In addition, Huawei will be providing CITC with access to its global events and forums for further knowledge exchange, while giving CITC more platforms to share its own best practices with the world. The two organizations have also set their sights on promoting the Kingdom’s ICT market to Huawei’s ecosystem of global partners, encouraging and facilitating participation in the local ICT sector. Moreover, both organizations will seek to spur ICT industry collaboration within global standardization bodies, promoting common interests. Charles Yang, president of Huawei Middle East, noted: “The wise leadership that CITC has shown in progressing Saudi Arabia’s digital ambitions in line with Vision 2030 is truly commendable. “We have been privileged to collaborate with CITC on many projects in the past, and look forward to supporting CITC in further enhancing digital infrastructure, nurturing local talent, and promoting the successes of the Kingdom’s ICT market on an international stage.” Huawei is already a partner of choice for service providers in Saudi Arabia for supporting customers through a broad range of end-to-end solutions. The company also works with various government ministries and enterprises to create value from the wider shift towards digitization. This has included ICT talent development initiatives such as Huawei’s ‘Seeds for the Future’ program, run in collaboration with CITC for the last five years. — SG