The Kingdom has come on the first position in the Gulf cooperation Council (GCC) states in term of information technology (IT) market value in 2009. The Kingdom was followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.

According to information announced by participants in Cloud Computing / Virtualisation Summit, held in Abu Dahbi, UAE from April 11 to 12, the IT market value in the GCC states amounted to $ 10 billion last year and is expected to grow by 10 percent annually.

Around 230 IT companies took part in this event. The summit discussed a number of topics including; future investment opportunities as well as the next few years vision regarding the use and impact of IT in all sectors.

Meanwhile, recent statistics have shown that the volume of opportunities offered by computing in global IT market is to reach $ 160 billion by 2011.

Studies have also indicated that solution services for IT sector may increase the net IT revenue by $ 800 billion by 2013.

Meanwhile, in a related development Saudi Arabia has improved its position in the Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010. The report was released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on March 25, 2010.

In this report, the Kingdom was ranked at the 38th place. In 2008-2009 report, the Kingdom was at 40th position, while it has ranked 48 on 2007-2008 report. The report reveals the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) that shows how prepared countries are in using ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) effectively.