Dr. Abdulaziz Alanazi discusses his recent international water prize win, a changing Riyadh, and more — The 966 E. 61

2:38 – Richard’s one big thing is Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Commerce has announced ten initiatives to develop the e-commerce retail industry, and the initiatives are based on the results of a survey “Consumer’s Voice”, conducted by the Ministry of Commerce to gauge the level of consumer satisfaction with the performance of online stores.

14:39 – Lucien’s one big thing is actually two big things. First, Lucien comments on a changing Riyadh having just returned from the Saudi capital, and why much is different and yet some things will stay the same. Then he provides an update on the latest with LIV golf’s quest to get its players crucial world ranking points so that they can compete in major events in the sport.34:06 – The 966 welcomes Dr. Abdulaziz Alanazi, assistant professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, who discusses his work that recently won a very prestigious international water award. Dr. Abdulaziz, along with his colleagues at the University of Cincinnati, won a very prestigious international award for their work studying ways to address water pollution. The Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water was awarded to Dr. Abdulaziz and his colleagues for their work developing advanced oxidation technologies and nanotechnologies to monitor and treat emerging toxins and other contaminants of emerging concern in water.

1:14:00 – Yallah! 6 top storylines to get you up to date headed into the weekend.

•Mohammed bin Salman named prime minister
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been appointed prime minister – a post that is traditionally held by the king. A royal decree announcing his promotion from deputy PM and defence minister cited an exception to the Basic Law. An official told Reuters news agency the move was in line with the king’s previous delegation of duties to him. “The crown prince… already supervises the main executive bodies of the state on a daily basis, and his new role as prime minister is within that context,” the official said. The 37-year-old son of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, 86, is already seen as the de facto head of government for Saudi Arabia. The decree named another of his sons, Prince Khalid bin Salman, as the new defence minister. A third, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, remains in the key role of energy minister.

•Saudi Arabia forecasts lower growth, revenue for 2023 amid uncertain global economic outlook
Saudi Arabia, which is forecasting a decade-high economic growth of 8% for 2022, is projecting its GDP will slow to 3.1% growth in 2023, the ministry of finance said in a preliminary 2023 budget report released on Sept. 30. Saudi Arabia is also forecasting its total revenue, including oil income, will drop in 2023 in a conservative baseline scenario. The ministry’s preliminary estimates are projecting an 8.1% decline in fiscal revenue to $299 billion in 2023 from a year earlier. “This is due to the direction that the government is adopting in basing the estimates of oil and non-oil revenues in the budget on conservative standards in anticipation of any developments that may occur in the domestic and global economy,” the ministry said.

•Saudi to host Asian Winter Games in NEOM megacity
Saudi Arabia was chosen on Tuesday to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games at NEOM which planners say will feature a year-round winter sports complex. The Saudi bid was “unanimously approved”, the statement said, noting that NEOM will be the first West Asian city to host the event.  The Asian Winter Games are slated to take place in Trojena, an area of NEOM “where winter temperatures drop below zero celsius and year-round temperatures are generally 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the region”, according to the project’s website. Set to be completed in 2026, Trojena will include year-round skiing, a manmade freshwater lake, chalets, mansions and ultra-luxury hotels according to the website. The Asian Winter Games include competitions for skiing, snowboarding, ice hockey and figure skating — 47 events in all, 28 on snow and 10 on ice.

•Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group launches $38bn investment strategy
Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group, owned by the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, has unveiled its new investment strategy, as the kingdom seeks to become one of the world’s major gaming hubs. The group plans to invest $38bn across four programmes, each with specific objectives, the Saudi Press Agency reported. The programmes include the acquisition and development of a leading game publisher to become a strategic development partner and making a series of minority stake investments in key companies that support Savvy’s game development agenda. They also include diversified investments in industry disrupters to grow early-stage games and esports companies as well as investing in mature industry partners who add value and expertise to Savvy’s portfolio.

•The Saudi Downtown Company (SDC), a company created under the aegis of the royalty and therefore the Public Investment Fund (PIF), will promote the launch of projects in various regions of the country, creating new jobs, with a view to improving the infrastructure of many cities and building strategic alliances with the private sector. The projects to be developed will be in twelve cities including Al-Khobar, Al-Ahsa, Buraidah, Najra, Jizan and Arar.

•Saudi Telecom Co., the Middle East’s most profitable mobile operator, plans to spend about $1 billion to transform the kingdom into a regional data hub, and may sell a stake in its Center3 business to finance the plans. The investment over the next five years by Center3, as the data unit is known, would help Saudi Arabia host more media, gaming and corporate data, according to Mohammed Alabbadi, STC’s chief carrier and wholesale officer and chairman of Center3. It would also follow an initial investment of $1 billion on building data centers and submarine data cables