Riyadh, June 23, 2021, SPA -- Saudi newspapers highlighted in their editorials today a number of issues at local, regional and international arenas. Al-Yaum newspaper reported in its editorial that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made unprecedented progress in international classifications and indices due to its exerted efforts and tireless keenness for being among the advanced countries in performance indices. In this regard, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) announced the Kingdom’s classification in the highest levels of the “Digital Regulatory Maturity Index” for telecom regulators around the world, “Level Five”, after its success in building a sustainable and homogeneous regulatory framework and the shift towards cooperative regulation, to be ranked first in the Middle East and Africa and ninth among the G20 countries, the paper said. Through Vision 2030, the Kingdom succeeded in empowering the communications and information technology sector and developing an ambitious strategy to transform into a “digital regulator” in line with global trends in this field, by launching a number of initiatives to develop the ICT sector’s regulations and bring it to the highest levels of organizational maturity globally, the paper added. ITU indicated that the criteria for classifying the regulatory maturity of the telecommunications and information technology sector bodies and organizations in the world revolve around measuring the extent of the sector’s development and keeping pace with its regulations for digital developments and the extent of government cooperation, in addition to aspects related to services provided to subscribers, the investment environment for service providers and the organizational style of the sector regulator, the paper further added. All these steps can be achieved by adopting 50 criteria for classifying telecom regulators around the world and dividing them into several levels, the highest of which is the “fifth level, the paper concluded. --SPA 08:42 LOCAL TIME 05:42 GMT 0010 www.spa.gov.sa/w1575594