Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Ibrahim Alkhorayef has emphasized during his participation in the roundtable meeting organized by the General Confederation of Italian Industry in Rome that Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies are a fundamental pillar for achieving industrial transformation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He noted that this would be accomplished by automating industrial facilities and converting them into smart factories that rely on the latest advanced manufacturing solutions. The meeting was attended by private sector leaders and the CEO of the National Industrial Development Center (NIDC), Eng. Saleh Al-Solami. Alkhorayef indicated during the meeting that the "Future Factories" program launched by the Kingdom aims to automate 4,000 factories by adopting Fourth Industrial Revolution applications in these factories and utilizing artificial intelligence and robotics in manufacturing processes and quality control. The minister said this aims to improve production efficiency and reduce costs, which will transform the nature of jobs in the Kingdom and create high-quality jobs that reduce reliance on unskilled labour. He also indicated that the Kingdom's National Industrial Strategy focuses on localizing and developing 12 promising industrial sectors. The strategy is designed to integrate with relevant entities in both the public and private sectors, and its objectives intersect with 20 other national strategies to achieve effective partnerships that benefit the Kingdom and its international partners, the minister stated. He added that the National Industrial Strategy offers over 800 investment opportunities worth SAR 1 trillion, making it an opportune time to attract investments from Italian companies into the Saudi industrial sector. The minister noted that Saudi Vision 2030 aims to diversify the Kingdom's economic base. One of its objectives is to transform the mining sector into a third pillar of the Saudi industry, positioning the Kingdom as a global hub for the production and manufacturing of minerals. This objective is based on the Kingdom's possession of approximately $2.5 trillion worth of important and diverse minerals and its ambitious steps to develop the sector. Source: Saudi Press Agency