The more than 300 graduates gathered at a hotel overlooking the Potomac River were all from Saudi Arabia, part of a massive government-paid foreign study program to earn bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees and return home to help run their country.
Saudi Arabia’s consumer electronics devices market, defined as the addressable market for computing devices, mobile handsets and video, audio and gaming products is projected at $6.4 billion in 2012, Business Monitor International said.
The new SACM headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia provides a modern hub for Saudi Students in the United States, and stands as a symbol of the strong cultural relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia, the biggest Arab economy, is leading moves toward political and economic cooperation, which it believes would give the mostly Sunni-led monarchies of the Gulf more power to withstand any confrontation with Shi’ite Iran.
Ramadan means more in the lives of Muslims than refraining from eating and drinking during the daylight hours. The ritual fasting during the holy month is among the five pillars of Islam.
Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans to further expand its lucrative automobile industry. In 2011 alone, the Kingdom announced the sale of approximately 800,000 cars potentially increasing to 1 million vehicles per year by the end of the current decade.
Every year, identifying the start of Ramadan is like a waiting game; Islamic scholars must see the new crescent moon in the night skies before the holy month officially begins.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has identified mining as a key investment area after oil and petrochemicals, and is spending an estimated $38 billion to develop two cities centered around mining.
“Nitaqat represents an effort to introduce more incentives for companies to employ Saudis and in that sense it is an improvement on what went before,” says James Reeve, an economist at the local Samba Financial Group.