Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia has been ranked first among 140 nations for its digital competitiveness as it invests heavily in the technology sector.

The Kingdom beat France, Indonesia and China to claim top spot among the G20 member states covered by the World Competitiveness Report, according to a statement carried by SPA. The findings were based on data provided by the World Economic Forum and the report analyzed how much progress countries had made relative to their global peers in the last three years.

“There are two main drivers,” said Philip Meissner, founder of the European Center for Digital Competitiveness, which compiled the study. “The champions in our report have a clear strategic vision that they swiftly implement and the second is that they all invest a lot in startups, in future technologies and in innovation in general.

Technology is a key driver of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 blueprint for economic and social reform. As the Kingdom seeks to reduce its reliance on the volatile oil industry it has become an increasingly high profile investor in global technology companies and encourages more of its graduates to pursue careers in the sector.

Within the G20 countries, Saudi Arabia was the top digital riser, while India and Italy fell significantly behind.

“Saudi Arabia’s outperformance can be mainly explained by its “ICT Strategy 2023”, which was launched in 2018 to transform the kingdom into a digital and technological powerhouse,” the report said. “Furthermore, the smart city project NEOM, to which the government allocated $500 billion, also highlights aspirations around the “Saudi Vision 2030.”

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Iran and Lebanon dropped significantly, although the region in general performed well with nine out of 14 countries improving their relative digital competitiveness.

Morocco and Saudi Arabia improved the most in the "ecosystem" and "mindset" dimensions, respectively.

Iran’s decline was mainly driven by the ecosystem dimension, while it also scored poorly on the mindset measure.