Riyadh: Saudi-headquartered media group SRMG has signed a MoU with NEOM Media Industries. Under the MoU, NEOM will leverage SRMG’s media expertise, extensive portfolio and established partnerships to increase content production in Saudi Arabia. This builds on the growing success of the sector in the Kingdom, as investment into infrastructure and upskilling of talent positions NEOM as a world-class production hub. SRMG’s existing and new partners will benefit from the collaboration between both brands, including access to world-class production facilities. Beyond production, SRMG and NEOM Media Industries will work together to design joint talent development and industry training programmes to continue to uplift the breadth and depth of the media talent pool within the region – including journalism, script writing and production. These programmes will build on the successful collaboration between NEOM and SRMG Academy in November last year - the “Stories to Tell” journalism bootcamp – which trained and upskilled young Saudi journalism graduates and media professionals and resulted in 22 interns being hired by SRMG. Nadhmi Al-Nasr, Chief Executive Officer of NEOM, said: “NEOM aims to be an accelerator of human progress – innovating across multiple industries and sectors to redefine business. NEOM Media Industries is one such example. Our mission is to create a new world-class media hub at NEOM, one that focuses on providing for screen production, gaming and digital publishing. This partnership with SRMG complements and accelerates NEOM’s commitment to creating a regional center to establish NEOM amongst the elite global media hubs.” Jomana R. Al-Rashid, Chief Executive Officer of SRMG, added: “This partnership represents an important moment for the media ecosystem in the MENA region. Working together, NEOM and SRMG will increase capability and capacity of localized production; accelerate media technology; and create new revenue streams for the industry. Through empowering local content creators, we will ensure that home-grown talent is nurtured and that regional stories are told on a world stage. There is extraordinary untapped creativity in the MENA region, and we are delighted to have created this opportunity to champion it.” Additional aspects of the MoU include media technology development, co-organising events at NEOM, and SRMG exploring establishing an early presence at NEOM in the long run.

NEOM has organized a series of "Discover NEOM" meetings with investors and business partners in Berlin and Paris as part of its ongoing efforts to attract investors and highlight the rapid progress it has made over the past year.Entrepreneurs, industry pioneers and potential business partners from the two European countries had the chance to engage with NEOM's CEO and several of the project’s leaders to explore future opportunities and support NEOM's mission to redefine business, urban livability, and nature conservation. The Discover NEOM European events were attended by around 400 key business, financial and sustainability leaders and included a series of sector-focused presentations, panels and exhibitions.Speaking at the events, Nadhmi Al-Nasr, CEO of NEOM, said: "We were delighted to be in Germany and France. We have significant German and French partners in water, energy and advanced manufacturing, and these events allowed potential investors across a wide variety of industries to explore the significant market opportunities that NEOM presents. We were especially focused on how we can best support the collaborative global effort to redefine the way we conduct business in a sustainable and future-oriented way. I look forward to the meaningful partnerships that we will forge in the coming months following these visits and the investment opportunities it will bring to NEOM and Saudi Arabia."Discover NEOM is part of a globetrotting initiative that aims to seek opportunities and attract foreign direct investment into NEOM, a region being built from the ground up with the world’s most advanced technologies to redefine how humanity lives, works and plays. Similar events have been held in the UK and the US over the last twelve months.