Virgin Mobile Saudi Arabia recently collaborated with Princess Noura University and Dublin City University to help students with the development of the skills required by industry to face future challenges.
A number of female Saudi students were the first to participate in an intensive three- to four-month telecommunications training program.
The program, which focused primarily on marketing, communications, social and digital media, set out to empower women and the Saudi youth through a number of professional coaching and training efforts.
“This project, which ran between May and July this year, allowed female students in the Kingdom to get a first-hand experience of the real working world, while providing them with the skills necessary to address the challenges of the sector itself,” said Fouad Halawi, CEO, Virgin Mobile Saudi Arabia.
“Virgin Mobile Saudi Arabia has continuously underlined its commitment to the Kingdom, and this program further demonstrates how seriously we are taking it. Saudi Arabia is undergoing major transformation and development on all levels, as it continues to diversify its work force and drive on toward becoming a knowledge-based economy. With partnerships like this, we can help grow an empowered, Saudi work force that will inspire future generations,” he added.
The program has also been identified as a shop window to attract more Saudi women to the telecom sector in the Kingdom. Each of the participating students received a certificate at the end of the training program, which was led in part by Dublin City University, who recently entered into collaboration with PNU to design and deliver two undergraduate degrees.
Virgin Mobile Saudi Arabia hopes the program will inspire a further number of Saudi students as it continues its mission to make mobile better in the Kingdom.
Virgin Mobile partners with Princess Noura University
Virgin Mobile partners with Princess Noura University
LuLu Retail wins ‘Best IPO in the Middle East’ award
LuLu Retail Holdings, the region’s leading full-line retailer, has been honored with the prestigious “Best IPO in the Middle East” award by EMEA Finance magazine. The recognition was presented at the annual EMEA Finance Achievement Awards 2024, held in London on June 22.
The accolade celebrates LuLu Retail’s landmark initial public offering, which successfully raised $1.7 billion in Q4 2024, and marked the company’s official listing on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange. The IPO drew widespread investor interest and was one of the most anticipated public listings in the region, reinforcing strong market confidence in the group’s growth trajectory, financial resilience, and retail leadership.
The EMEA Finance Achievement Awards are regarded as a benchmark of excellence in capital markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Winners are selected by the editorial board from a pool of nominations submitted by investment banks, corporates, and market participants. The awards spotlight the most impactful and innovative financial transactions spanning IPOs, debt issuance, Islamic finance, structured deals, and mergers and acquisitions.
Saifee Rupawala, CEO of LuLu Retail Holdings, said: “We are truly honored to receive this award, which reflects the strength of our business, the commitment of our team, and the trust placed in us by our investors. The IPO marked a transformative chapter for LuLu Retail, and we remain committed to delivering long-term value and sustainable growth.”
RSGT to invest SR1.6bn to develop four Red Sea ports
Red Sea Gateway Terminal, Saudi Arabia’s leading container terminal operator and a subsidiary of the Sustainable Infrastructure Holding Company, has announced a strategic expansion into multi-purpose terminal operations, through newly awarded concessions at four existing strategic port facilities along the Red Sea. This significant milestone, in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, enhances the Kingdom’s position as a global logistics hub and improves connectivity across international trade routes.
Under the newly signed 20-year concession agreements with the Saudi Ports Authority, known as Mawani, RSGT will assume operational responsibility for the following terminals:
- Jeddah Islamic Port — General cargo and ro-ro terminals (to be consolidated into a single multi-purpose terminal)
- King Fahd Industrial Port, Yanbu — Container operations will complement the existing dry and liquid bulk operations
- Yanbu Commercial Port – Dry bulk and general cargo operations
- Port of Jazan — General cargo and dry bulk operations
Together, these ports contribute an additional 13 km of quay length and 3.3 million square meters of terminal space to RSGT’s portfolio. Operations will be under the purview of RSGT’s new multi-purpose terminals business unit, which will manage all non-containerized cargo segments, including ro-ro, general cargo, project cargo, dry and liquid bulk, and livestock.
This strategic move has been made possible through the continued collaboration between RSGT and Mawani, whose commitment to public-private partnerships continues to play a pivotal role in transforming the Kingdom’s port sector and enabling world-class logistics services.
RSGT expects to invest a minimum of SR1.6 billion ($418 million) over the 20-year concession period, with SR700 million allocated for expenditure within the first five years of the concession period. These investments will focus on upgrading infrastructure, deploying advanced equipment, and introducing smart technologies to elevate all four terminals to world-class standards.
The projected average annual throughput includes: 3 million tons of general cargo, 13 million tons of bulk cargo, 13.5 million tons of liquid bulk, 710,000 ro-ro units (vehicles), and 8 million head of livestock.
RSGT will also pursue container terminal development in Yanbu, further positioning it as a strategic regional logistics hub.
“Our expansion into multi-purpose terminals marks a milestone in the evolution of our strategic vision,” said RSGT CEO Jens Floe. “The additions to our portfolio and operations reflect our ongoing commitment to facilitating global trade, advancing economic diversification, and reinforcing Saudi Arabia’s increasingly important role in global supply chains. This investment also lays the foundation for the next phase of our growth strategy, as we expand our international footprint across all cargo segments.”
This expansion into non-containerized cargo handling at four new locations marks a significant step in RSGT’s continued growth and diversification. By broadening its service portfolio beyond container operations, RSGT is strengthening its position as a leading logistics player in the region and expanding its role across global logistics chain.
RSGT, the largest container terminal in Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea region, handled 3.1 million 20-foot equivalent units in 2024, a year negatively impacted by the ongoing Red Sea crises, with an annual capacity of 6.2 million TEUs at its flagship facility located at Jeddah Islamic Port.
In early 2024, RSGT’s associate company, Red Sea Gateway International, became Saudi Arabia’s first international terminal operator by launching operations at Chittagong Port in Bangladesh. The addition of four new multi-purpose terminals to RSGT’s portfolio further solidifies the Jeddah- based company’s position as a diversified and globally active leader in logistics.
Saudi school evaluation framework sets global benchmark, says expert
As part of the ongoing technical cooperation between the Education and Training Evaluation Commission and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD expert team recently concluded its visit to ETEC’s headquarters in Riyadh.
The visit featured exchanges of expertise and in-depth discussions on technical frameworks for measuring learning outcomes and evaluating schools within Saudi Arabia’s K–12 education system.
OECD delegates commended ETEC’s rapid development and institutional maturity, highlighting the significant progress made in evaluating K–12 education. They were particularly impressed by how the commission achieved such swift and inclusive progress, especially given the large scale of Saudi Arabia’s education system.
This was emphasized by Dr. Harold Hislop, head of the OECD Expert Team and former chief inspector for school evaluation in Ireland (2010–2020), who praised the scale and pace of Saudi Arabia’s school evaluation efforts.
He said: “The new school evaluation system that you've put in place is enormously impressive; the scale of being able to evaluate and work with over 23,000 schools in less than a two-year period! No other country in the world that I know of has been able to do anything like that on that scale and at that speed.”
He added: “We're learning an awful lot about what ETEC is doing so we can go to other countries with that information. You have developed a complete school evaluation process in less than five years. Now, no other country in the world has done that.”
He praised the evaluation model developed by ETEC to align with the Saudi context, saying: “And I thought there was one really impressive thing that struck me so strongly today. When talking to school leaders, they said, we now have an evaluation system that is a Saudi evaluation system for Saudi schools. It understands our context, it understands the circumstances of our schools, and it gives advice that suits our system. That's an enormous achievement.”
Expressing his appreciation for the commitment demonstrated by stakeholders at all levels to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, Dr. Hislop remarked: “I would say I'm impressed by your commitment and vision to drive improvement, to make education and access to good quality education a driver to improve the lives of children and Saudi citizens for the future. That's a really strong commitment that I hear from everyone that I've met. It links to your Vision 2030 across the Kingdom, but it's consistent right the way through your organization.”
He highlighted the comprehensive nature of ETEC’s system and its efforts to engage parents in monitoring their children’s academic progress through the “Mustaqbalhum” app.
“I think, some countries have definitely developed some apps, or other applications, that do put some of the results of school evaluations into the hands of parents ... and some information. But I've never seen anything as comprehensive as yours, where you're linking student test data from the NAFS tests. You're providing information about your judgments on schools, you're providing enrollment data, and so on, in one system.
“Now, I'm not aware of any other system that has managed to do that. So maybe you'll start selling the technology to other people, because certainly they will be very interested in seeing it,” he added.
It is worth noting that the School Evaluation System for public, private, and international schools in the Kingdom is a comprehensive and integrated framework designed to assess the performance of K–12 schools.
It follows a continuous scientific methodology that gathers performance data using a range of tools and methods, analyzes the results against clearly defined standards and benchmarks, and provides actionable recommendations for improvement and development.
The system aims to promote a standards-based evaluation culture in schools, support continuous school improvement, and help schools achieve targeted learning outcomes.
It also encourages the participation of all stakeholders in evaluating and enhancing school performance, assists schools in identifying innovative solutions to meet their specific needs, and helps them optimize the use of available human and material resources. Furthermore, it provides comprehensive and reliable performance data that supports decision-making and enables effective education system management.
What distinguishes the Saudi evaluation system is its implementation through the Tameyuz digital platform, which oversees all evaluation processes and procedures.
Through this platform, more than 7 million surveys have been distributed, over 913,000 classroom observations conducted, more than 518,000 interviews completed, and over 146,000 users, including education personnel and officials, have accessed the system.
Tameyuz platform generates reports at multiple levels, serving national education policymakers, regional directorates, local education offices, schools, and parents. To date, it has produced more than 23,000 school evaluation reports and over 18,000 performance scorecards linked to the National Assessment for Schools or NAFS.
A key factor behind the success of the Saudi system is the strong partnership between ETEC and the Ministry of Education. This collaboration operates within a joint governance framework that balances institutional independence with coordinated implementation, enabling both entities to fulfill their respective responsibilities effectively in pursuit of a shared goal: enhancing education quality and advancing the Kingdom’s ambitious national objectives.
As part of its efforts to evaluate and enhance K–12 education, ETEC implements NAFS. The NAFS assessments are administered in grades three, six, and nine, and play a pivotal role in measuring and improving student academic achievement, promoting school excellence, and fostering constructive competition among schools, education offices, and regional education directorates.
NAFS assessments are carried out through a collaborative framework and ongoing coordination between ETEC and the Ministry of Education, aiming to achieve national goals — most importantly, the targets of Saudi Vision 2030 and the Human Capability Development Program, one of its flagship initiatives.
In 2025, NAFS was implemented for the fourth consecutive year, covering 1,358,224 students across 25,982 schools, including early childhood, elementary, and middle schools.
Launched in the 2023–2024 academic year, the School Evaluation and Classification Program has achieved extensive national reach. To date, 100 percent of schools (more than 24,000) have completed their self-evaluations, which serve as a foundational step in the evaluation process.
Following this, external evaluations have been conducted for over 23,000 schools, representing more than 93 percent of all public and private elementary, middle, and secondary schools across the Kingdom. These site visits were carried out by the External School Evaluation Team.
These evaluations have reached all corners of the Kingdom. More than 800 schools are visited weekly, spanning over 2,230 cities, towns, and rural communities, accessed by paved roads, desert routes, and even by sea when necessary. The operations are coordinated through a centralized command center, which has managed over 460,000 evaluation trips nationwide.
As of now, a total of 21,716 schools have been officially classified, including 10,955 girls’ schools and 10,761 boys’ schools.
ETEC has also launched the Mustaqbalhum app to strengthen parental engagement in their children’s educational journey. The app provides parents with valuable information and tools to enhance awareness, monitor academic performance, and assess skills and abilities, ultimately supporting their children’s overall development and future success.
The application includes the Your Child’s Future assessment tools, which are designed to diagnose and measure children’s cognitive and academic abilities.
These tools are organized into two main categories. The first category, Achievement Assessments, consists of instruments that evaluate students’ academic knowledge and skills.
For example, it includes the Arabic Language Assessment for young learners, a brief, optional assessment that is not directly linked to the school curriculum and is intended to measure children’s language proficiency.
This category also features the Qudrati (My Abilities) Assessment, a suite of tools that assess general cognitive abilities such as comprehension, analysis, reasoning, and application. It focuses on identifying students’ learning potential and simulates the General Aptitude Test used as a college entrance exam by all public universities in Saudi Arabia.
The second category includes Practice and Training Assessments, which are designed to help students prepare for college entrance exams. These assessments include practice for the General Aptitude Test, which evaluates learning-related abilities such as analytical and reasoning skills in secondary school graduates seeking admission to higher education institutions.
They also offer training for the Achievement Test, which measures academic achievement across various secondary school subjects and is required for university admission in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the tools provide practice for the STEP (Standardized Test of English Proficiency), which assesses students’ English language proficiency across key measurable language skills.
ETEC prepares detailed reports on its various evaluation processes and shares them with the Ministry of Education and other relevant stakeholders.
Each school receives an individual performance report based on school evaluation and classification standards.
In addition, the commission provides schools, education directorates, and their offices with student performance scorecards from the national assessments.
ETEC also compiles regional education reports for the Kingdom’s governorships.
Moreover, the commission provides the Ministry of Education with comprehensive individual-level data and key educational performance indicators.
To maximize the impact of its evaluation, assessment, and accreditation activities, the commission has recently developed the Education and Training Status Room, a national developmental tool designed to leverage the full potential of data across all levels of education.
The platform is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of K–12 education, higher education, and training, along with in-depth analytical use cases that address key policy questions and inform education and training practices.
It offers policymakers, educational leaders, and stakeholders real-time, continuous access to the latest data and insights, enhancing transparency and improving the effectiveness and timeliness of decisions at both the strategic and operational levels.
The platform is distinguished by its comprehensive data presentation and continuous automated updates. It is also designed with a dynamic and flexible architecture that enables decision-makers to explore trends and patterns that support both strategic and operational decisions in education and training.
In addition, the platform offers a holistic view of all aspects of education and training, featuring a range of in-depth analyses that address key questions related to improving educational quality, anticipating impacts on the economy and national development, and creating new opportunities for targeted discussions and deeper data exploration.
Work on the platform began in early 2025. It currently contains more than 200,000 data points detailing the state of K–12 education, higher education, and training, along with 19 in-depth analyses that incorporate over 45,000 descriptive and inferential statistics.
Saudi Arabia’s transformation boosts investor confidence
More than 300 global institutional investors met with all seven bourses from the GCC and over 100 GCC corporates at HSBC’s GCC Exchanges Conference in London last week. The event comes as global economic uncertainty reshapes capital flows, with global investors exploring new opportunities in the Gulf for long-term, reform-driven growth, and maturing capital markets.
Now in its fourth year, the conference focused on the region’s resilience. Saudi Arabia was a main feature of the first two days of the conference, where guest speakers included Minister of Investment of Saudi Arabia Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, and Deputy Market Institutions at Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority Raed Alrashed Alhumaid.
Having registered a 3.4 percent year-on-year increase in GDP in Q1, Saudi Arabia’s non-oil growth is tracking ahead of already strong initial estimates. Discussions focused on plans for the Kingdom’s services and non-oil manufacturing sectors, as well as efforts to continue liberalizing financial market infrastructure.
Faris AlGhannam, chief executive and board member, HSBC Saudi Arabia, said: “The resilient activity in Saudi Arabia’s private and public markets, as well as the breadth of sectors coming to market, is a reflection of investors’ confidence in the Kingdom’s long-term potential despite testing markets.”
Mohammed Al-Rumaih, chief executive, Saudi Exchange, said: “The global investor appetite for the Saudi capital market continues to deepen, driven by the Kingdom’s ongoing economic transformation. At the Saudi Exchange, we remain committed to enabling access, enhancing market infrastructure, and fostering transparency to support diversified capital formation across sectors. The strong engagement witnessed this year at the GCC Exchanges Conference further reflects the growing international confidence in the Saudi market and its central role in the Kingdom’s national transformation roadmap.”
Although domestic market liquidity and oil-dependency have been traditional constraints for equity investors, HSBC analysts predict that the combination of IPOs and secondary listings from the Kingdom as well as the removal of foreign ownership limits could lift Saudi Arabia’s weight in emerging market benchmarks.
Saudi Arabia led listing activity in the region during the first quarter, despite a slowdown in issuances globally, with 12 IPOs across sectors such as real estate, healthcare, financial services, and retail.
AlGhannam added: “Global investors are recalibrating for resilience and the GCC’s balance sheet strength and sophisticated financial markets ecosystem make it a capital magnet.”
This year, for the first time, HSBC brought together emerging markets macro strategists with GCC attendees, as EM investors dial up their exposure to the Gulf’s capital markets driven by strong GDP projections relative to the broader EM pool.
Saudi Electronic University archives top global ranking
The Saudi Electronic University achieved a notable milestone by advancing in the 2025 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, issued by the British Times organization, which assesses universities worldwide based on their commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The university ranked 17th among 34 participating Saudi universities and was placed in the 601–800 global category out of 2,318 universities worldwide.
This ranking is considered one of the leading international indicators for measuring universities’ impact on their communities through their contributions to achieving the SDGs. The university participated in achieving five key goals: quality education, good health and well-being, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, and partnerships for achieving these goals.
This progress reflects the university’s continued commitment to integrating sustainability concepts into its academic and research environment and to enhancing its contribution to addressing societal, environmental, and economic challenges in support of Saudi Vision 2030.
SEU’s President Dr. Mohammad bin Yahya Mardi said that the achievement is a continuation of the unlimited support from the Kingdom’s wise leadership and the efforts of all university staff.
Founded in 2011 by royal decree, SEU has a unique vision: to create a flexible, world-class learning environment for students who need a non-traditional educational path. This electronic university is part of the Kingdom’s initiative to modernize its education sector while maintaining its commitment to excellence.
The university operates under a blended learning model, incorporating online education with periodic in-person sessions to ensure a rich and interactive academic experience.
