BUCHAREST — The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been re-elected to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Council, extending for another four years the membership it has held since 1965.

Voting was held to elect 48 out of the 193 seats on the Council, which sets the ITUs strategic direction, by ITU member states during the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP22), currently being held in the Romanian capital, Bucharest.

Minister of Communications and Information Technology and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), Eng. Abdullah Bin Amer Al-Sawaha lauded the re-election.

He congratulated Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Prince Muhammad Bin Salman on the achievement, stressing that the support of the wise government has boosted the Kingdom’s digital competitiveness, placing it at the fore of the global ICT sector.

Dr. Muhammad Bin Saud Al-Tamimi, governor of CITC, also extended his congratulations to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the Crown Prince, pointing to the importance of supporting the leadership and its wise guidance in achieving this international achievement.

In addition to securing its membership in the ITU Council, the Kingdom, represented by Eng. Majid Al-Qahtani won the membership of the Radio Regulations Board (RRB), which consists of 12 elected members highly qualified in the field of radio communications.

The Board’s primary remit is to examine cases of frequency interference between countries and consider appeals about decisions taken by the Radiocommunication Bureau (BR).

It is noteworthy that the international community supported all the accounts led by the Kingdom during the conference, foremost of which is the formulation of the strategic and financial plan for the union, and discussion of international public policies related to the Internet and the role of the union in it.

The global community backed the Kingdom seeking strengthening the role of the union in building trust and cyber security, adopting artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT), and discussing the convening of ‘World Summit on the Information Society Forum. — SPA