KING SALMAN RESHAPES SAUDI ARABIA’S GOVERNMENT WITH SERIES OF DECREES
▶ Promotions and appointments include Iman Al Mutairi, kingdom’s first female deputy minister of commerce
King Salman appointed Faisal Al Ibrahim as Saudi Arabia’s Economy and Planning Minister in one of several royal decrees issued on Monday.
Mr Al Ibrahim was deputy minister of economy and planning before his appointment, according to the royal decree carried by the state news agency.
He held several senior positions at the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), was an adviser at the Economy and Planning Ministry and was a member of the Finance Committee
Secretariat at the royal court.
Mr Al Ibrahim holds a master’s degree in business administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University.
Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan served as acting economy and planning minister after Mohammed Al Tuwaijri was relieved of his duties in 2020 to serve as an adviser to the royal court.
A royal decree named Iman Al Mutairi as deputy minister of commerce – the first woman to hold the role.
Ms Al Mutairi, who holds a doctorate in biochemistry from Bristol University in England, served as assistant to the Commerce Minister in 2018 after beginning her career as a teacher in the King Faisal University’s chemistry department in 1993.
The role of assistant to the Commerce Minister will be filled by Bader bin Abdul.
Prince Sultan bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s first man in space, was appointed as a special adviser to the king with the rank of minister.
Prince Sultan made history as the first Arab and Muslim man to go into space after working as a payload specialist aboard Nasa’s Space Shuttle mission on June 17, 1985.
In 2018, the prince was appointed as chairman of the board of directors of the Saudi Space Agency, also serving at the rank of minister.
Communications and Information Technology Minister Abdullah Al Swaha will take over from Prince Sultan at the space agency.
National Cybersecurity Authority governor Khaled Al Sabti was reappointed chairman of the board of directors of the Education and Training Evaluation Commission, taking over from Ahmed Al Issa. Mr Al Sabti will also serve as an adviser to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers at the rank of minister.
He previously served as higher education minister, is a co-holder of two patents for data mining and holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Syracuse in New York.
The newly established Digital Government Authority to automate government services will be led by Ahmed Al Suwaiyan, according to the decrees.