RIYADH, 18 May 2006 — Saudi Arabia has announced final plans to award one or several new licenses for fixed and mobile services by the end of 2006.

“The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) is studying the requirements for issuing the licenses while taking into consideration international experience in this field, and the Kingdom’s commitments under the WTO,” said Ibrahim A. Kadi, CITC’s senior adviser.

Kadi told Arab News here on Tuesday that “the CITC had prepared a schedule for the new fixed and mobile services licensing process with an aim to issue licenses by the end of the year.”

The CITC adviser was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar, organized by the Riyadh-based Institution of Engineers Pakistan-Saudi Arabian Center (IEP-SAC) here at Prince Salman Social Center. The topic of the seminar was “Digital divide and liberalization of Saudi telecom sector.”

Referring to the four stages of licensing, Kadi said that the CITC would conclude the public consultations on key policy issues next month and start public consultations on licensing criteria and processes. It will publish the licensing schedule during the second half of the year followed by the submission of applications by interested parties. Evaluation, selection and award of new licenses by the CITC will be done in the last quarter of the current year. Referring to the massive growth of the Kingdom’s telecom sector, the CITC adviser said that the Kingdom had reported one of the highest international traffic because of the large number of foreigners living in this country. The markets, as a whole, of Middle East, Gulf and North Africa are growing very fast and have a subscriber base of more than 80 million. And, it is expected o exceed 150 million by 2009. Saudi Arabia opened its telecom sector in 2004 by granting a license to Mobily.

He said that the region’s telecom market was shifting to mature competition with a number of markets further opening up in the coming years. The overall subscribers in the Middle East grew to 79.7 million last June, an increase of 17 million year-on-year for an annual growth rate of 27 percent. “This is expected to cross 150 million by 2009,” according to a study. This represents four percent of the global subscription base of two billion.