Riyadh, March 29, 2020, SPA – The National Transformation Program (NTP) released its annual report, reviewing its most significant achievements by the end of the year 2019. The launch of the report coincides with the achievements made by the country with a major role of the national transformation program and its participating bodies in achieving them, resulting in the most positive impact on the Kingdom's position, locally and internationally. The achievements highlighted in the National Transformation Program (NTP) report were categorized according to its three main axes: strengthening economic potentials, achieving excellence in government performance and raising the level of living services. Through enacting and implementing systems and processes that remove obstacles to start and develop businesses and provide the necessary protection to the business sector. In addition to increasing the contribution of small and medium enterprises (SME) in the economy to enhance and support innovation and entrepreneurship, attracting direct, diversified and sustainable foreign investments, increasing women's participation in the labor market to achieve economic and social development, removing obstacles that prevent them from joining the labor market, and developing the tourism sector to promote the Kingdom as a preferred tourist destination, and the maintaining the Islamic, Arab and national heritage of the Kingdom and its identity and registration of a number of sites in the Kingdom within the internationally recognized and registered heritage sites. As well as encouraging volunteer work to increase the participation of community members in volunteer activities to provide them with practical skills in a manner that ensures providing suitable job opportunities for them. In addition to increasing the contribution of productive families to the economy by activating the regulation of their work and providing financing solutions to ensure their growth. Upgrading the quality of services provided in Saudi cities to implement the concepts of smart cities in the Kingdom, and supporting effective communication channels with citizens, the business community and government bodies. NTP report also reviewed the program’s achievements through the second axis, which is concerned with achieving excellence in government performance by enhancing transparency in all government sectors to increase the confidence of beneficiaries in the performance of government sectors and improving the quality of services provided to citizens to ensure easy access to them, and attracting appropriate global talents effectively and motivating them to integrate into the Saudi society. The second axis also aims to develop e-government to enhance the quality of services rendered to the beneficiaries, improve the productivity of government employees, create a stimulating work environment to raise workforce efficiency, and improve health services quality and efficiency provided to citizens and residents and facilitate access to them. NTP report also reviewed the achievements of the program in its third axis, which aims to raise the standard of living services by enhancing traffic safety and activating a comprehensive system of traffic safety, including: the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Education, and the Saudi Red Crescent Authority, Public Transportation Authority, and the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization (SASO). The third axis also aims to develop the digital economy and technologies related to the fourth industrial revolution, facilitate access to health services by upgrading infrastructure, raising capacity, training medical personnel, strengthening prevention against health risks to control infectious and non-communicable diseases, and increasing readiness for health disasters. In addition to that improving the urban landscape in Saudi cities, to ensure the aesthetics of public views and reduce disturbing views, and to ensure sustainable use of water resources, including the development of their sources and effective use of them, and the protection of the environment from natural hazards to reduce natural disasters and resulting losses and ensure early warning to them, and ensure achieving developmental and food sufficiency to sustain vital resources. Eng. Thamir bin Abdullah Al-Sadoun, CEO of the National Transformation Program, stated that “under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the support of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, may Allah protect them, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has achieved many successes represented in fulfilling a number of achievements that befit this generous country. NTP plays a major role in overcoming the challenges that prevent the achievement of the Kingdom's ambitious 2030 vision goals. The program has made many achievements to make these aspirations come true; Saudi Arabia ranked first globally in business environment reforms according to the “Doing Business 2020” report issued by the World Bank Group, due to its efforts in developing the business environment through the establishment of the National Competitiveness Center (Tayseer) to develop a competitive environment in the Kingdom by implementing more than (400) reforms to serve investors, such as: procedures automation, development of regulations, regulations and policies, and enabling the private sector to achieve economic development. Additionally, the program contributed in supporting the Kingdom to advance more than 100 rankings, from 141 in 2018 to 38 in 2019, in the World Bank Group's Doing Business Report for the "Business Start-up" index, through the launch of the Comprehensive Service Centers (Meras), which provides a package of licenses and electronic services for doing business such as starting a business by establishing companies electronically in just one hour, managing a business, and closing the business, in addition to a number of regulations that have developed the business infrastructure, thus leading to the Kingdom's progress in the global ranking to be in the position (49) advanced (3) on the overall index of the most developed countries in the United Nations Trade and Development Index (UNCTAD). The program also helped raise the level of protection for investors in practicing business by issuing the bankruptcy regulations. In addition to the issuance of the commercial mortgage system and its executive regulation, and the issuance of the commercial franchise system. Al-Sadoun added: “These efforts have resulted in the Kingdom's excellence in the field of women's empowerment through several initiatives, such as the "Promotion of Remote Working" initiative, which aims to create a flexible recruitment method for those who face difficulty to be in the workplace, and the "Promotion Flexible Work" initiative, which aims to increase the number of flexible working hours (clockwork) in the public and private sectors, in addition to the initiative "Parallel Training to the Requirements of the Labor Market", which aims to develop training programs ending with employment to enable job seekers to find suitable opportunities, as well as other initiatives that empower women It contributes to its job stability by implementing solutions to some of the challenges they face through the "Providing Care Services for The Children of Working Women" initiative and the "Support and Facilitation of Women's Transportation" initiative. Also, the report reviewed many achievements, for example, the Kingdom's progress in the Index of Corruption Perceptions reaching the 10th place among the G20 economic group, for its efforts to eliminate financial and administrative corruption and consolidate the principles of transparency, justice and economic reform, in addition to the achievements made in the tourism sector, including the issuance of tourist visas, which resulted in the issuance of more than 350,000 tourist visas during the last quarter of 2019. The Kingdom's traffic safety has recorded a 20% decrease in traffic accident mortalities in 2018 compared to 2017. The program also contributed to recognizing the Kingdom's second place in the frequency bands allocation among the G20 countries through the implementation of the digital transformation plan, which resulted in the third place globally in the spread of 5G technology. The Kingdom's digital transformation is serving economic and development practices, such as the launch of “Najiz”, a system to standardize judicial procedures and automate judicial services, the health application of "Sehha" to provide visual medical consultations via smartphones, and “RSD”, an electronic drug tracking system for tracking pharmaceuticals electronically at all stages of production to consumption to ensure the availability of medicines and ensure their validity and safety, and the launch of the municipal investment portal "Furas", to present investment opportunities in all regions of the Kingdom announced by the secretariats and municipalities, and the launch of the "Balady" platform to develop the quality of municipal services provided throughout the Kingdom and activate the role of the citizen as an active partner in development. Al-Sadoun, concluded that these achievements are only the result of the program's acceleration of the pace of implementation of basic and digital infrastructure projects, and the involvement of beneficiaries in identifying challenges and creating solutions and their contribution to implementation. Moreover, this would not have come true without the dedicated efforts of the program team, and the collaboration of all vision offices and government agencies participating in the program, crowned with the support of the members of the National Transformation Program Committee, that saved no effort to advance the progress march towards achieving our country's ambitious vision. --SPA 15:39 LOCAL TIME 12:39 GMT 0018 www.spa.gov.sa/w1297221