The kingdom’s ban on women behind the wheel was lifted on Sunday.
Just one day after Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on women driving, 120,000 female drivers have applied for their licences.
Six driving schools have been set up in the country to accommodate them, The National reports.
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Major General Mansour Al Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of the Interior, gave the figures in a Riyadh press conference.
“More than 120,000 women have applied for licences and the demand remains extremely high,” he said.
More than 120,000 women applied for licences. Demand for licences is very big #SaudiWomenDriving pic.twitter.com/3GBw42U4DN
— CIC Saudi Arabia (@CICSaudi) June 24, 2018
Al Turki added that 40 female accident investigators would be hired in the coming weeks, while Major General Mohammed Al Bassami, director general of the Saudi Traffic Department, said there had not yet been any traffic violations by women drivers recorded.
Before June 24, Saudi women had been banned from driving since 1957. The kingdom was the last country in the world to grant women the right to drive.
Saudi Arabia’s economy may be boosted by as much as $90 billion (Dhs330b) by the law change, Bloomberg Economics’ Ziad Daoud told The National.
“The participation of women in Saudi Arabia’s labour market is poor. With only 20 per cent of females in Saudi Arabia economically active, the country even lags behind its neighbours in the Gulf, where participation averaged 42 per cent in 2016,” Daoud said, adding that Saudi authorities have recognised this.
The reform comes as part of the kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030, a post-oil economy plan under which the government aims to increase the percentage of women in the nation’s workforce from 23 per cent to 28 per cent by 2020.
(And now that women won’t need to hire male drivers to transport them to work, this goal looks even more feasible).
King Salman’s decree is just the latest in Saudi’s changing shift in women’s opportunities in recent times.
This year, more Saudi females have been appointed to top jobs, a royal directive allowed women to use certain government services without a male guardian’s consent, and recent approval was issued for the go-ahead of women’s gyms.
Images: Getty, Supplied
