Saudi Arabia has begun administering the Kingdom’s boldest, most innovative, and farthest-reaching modernization and development plan in the country’s history. It addresses the near, mid-term, and longer-term needs and challenges that strategists believe the country is likely to face in the next fifteen years. Conceptualized and approved by the country’s leaders, the plan’s name is “Saudi Arabia Vision 2030.”
The plan reflects an extraordinary degree of extended research, analysis, and assessment. It was aided throughout by the input and comment of some of the world’s most renowned and experienced advisors in forward planning, focus, messaging, and communication. The process was launched in 2015 soon after Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques HRH King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Sa’ud appointed his son, HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense.
In the eyes of his fellow citizens and the Kingdom’s inhabitants, Prince Mohammed is unique. A reason is not only because of his youth. He was 30 years of age on the day “Vision 2030” was officially announced in April 2016. Of special interest and in this century without precedent is that he has been entrusted to oversee, guide, and administer two of the country’s most strategically vital portfolios.
In one, in his position and role as Chairman of the Economic and Development Affairs Council, Prince Mohammed is tasked with protecting and advancing the material wellbeing of the Kingdom’s 30 million people. Not least among his challenges in this regard is how best to address the needs of the country’s burgeoning youthful citizenry. The nature and degree of unemployment among this segment of Saudi Arabia’s population is a matter of mounting and daunting concern, combined as it is with the goal of increasing dramatically the share of private sector and foreign investment involvement in the Kingdom’s economic growth.
The Deputy Crown Prince has also been assigned to head the country’s principal armed forces establishment. The Kingdom’s military is tasked with defending the Arab and Muslim world’s most important and influential country in a region that, to a greater extent than any in the past half century, is laced – not within the GCC region, of which it is an integral part, but immediately beyond it – with an unprecedented degree of tension and turmoil.
In this regard, in close association with his ruling family cousin, Second-in-Command Crown Prince and Minister of Interior HRH Prince Mohammad bin Naif bin Abdulaziz Al Sa’ud, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed is responsible for aiding the King in his role as Custodian of Islam’s two holiest places, Mecca and Medina. Internationally and domestically, the two leaders are jointly expected to ensure the Kingdom’s ongoing national sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity.
Stated differently, the two leaders, assisted by Minister of Foreign Affairs HE Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, are the primary Saudi Arabians tasked with protecting the country and the legitimate interests of its people. These include first and foremost enhancing the Kingdom’s security, stability, and peace, without which there would be no prospects for prosperity. Were these three interconnected factors to be weakened or lost, the likelihood of the country being able to maintain its present standard of living, let alone strengthen and advance it, would be difficult if not impossible.
It is with regard to this first aspect of the Deputy Crown Prince’s responsibilities that the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations is pleased to provide an essay asking “Can Saudi Arabia’s ‘Vision 2030’ Get the Kingdom Off the Oil-Economy Roller Coaster?” The author is Dr. Paul Sullivan, a Council Non-Resident Senior International Affairs Fellow. Drawing on the courses he teaches on national security challenges and economic dynamics, and vice versa, at two of America’s leading institutions of higher education, Dr. Sullivan examines the nature and goals of as well as the necessary national material and human resources relevant to the Kingdom’s strategic development plan for the next fifteen years.
In keeping with National Council’s Analyses and Assessments series, of which this essay is a part, the author weighs the prospects for the Kingdom being able to manage and address “Vision 2030″‘s challenges effectively. In so doing, he sheds light on what in his view will be required to achieve even a portion of the plan’s stated goals. In the process, he provides an array of information about, insightful data on, and analysis and evaluation of the Kingdom’s economic development prospects that would otherwise be hard-to-come-by.
Dr. John Duke Anthony
Founding President and CEO
National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations
Washington, DC
The Saudi Arabian economy is dominated by oil and has been for many decades. Oil accounts for about 35-45% of the GDP of Saudi Arabia. It is the source of 75-80% of its government revenues and 85-90% of its export revenues. Petrochemicals, based on oil and a much more recent component of the Kingdom’s economy than hydrocarbon fuels, are Saudi Arabia’s next largest export.
Saudi Arabia’s Oil-Economy Roller Coaster
At times in the past Saudi Arabia’s economy has been like a roller coaster. There was an economic boom due to the October 1973 Israeli-Arab war-induced oil embargo and the 1979 Iranian Revolution’s boost to the price for hydrocarbon fuels. This was followed by the collapse of oil prices and the resultant damage to the Saudi Arabian economy, which began in the early 1980s and continued until the late 1990s. As international oil prices remained stagnate throughout the better part of these two decades until the turn of the present century, so too, in many ways, did the Kingdom’s economy.
As prices began to ramp up in the 2000s, Saudi Arabia’s economy moved up with them until the Great Recession hit in 2008 when they collapsed for a brief period as the 2008 recession took its toll on markets. Soon after, however, prices rose to more than $100 per barrel in 2011, where they would remain until May 2014.
The most recent price collapse – from May-June 2014 until about January-February 2016 – was precipitous. The price since then, however, has risen, albeit in an unstable, bouncy, and slow manner. In short, Saudi Arabia has ridden the good times of oil price booms. It has also ridden the bad times when the price has collapsed.
Saudi Arabia has ridden the good times of oil price booms. It has also ridden the bad times when the price has collapsed.
The average Saudi Arabian’s income and wealth increased dramatically from 2002 to 2014. This was mostly due to the elevated level of oil revenues. The result was an increase in government spending and massive capital expenditures together with public sector investments.
Past Saudi Arabian economic improvements have started with a significant and sustained increase in the price of oil with concomitant increases in government and export revenues. These have been followed by large expenditures and investments in public sector ventures, with corresponding increases in imported labor, in Saudi Arabian employment, in massive building programs, and in contributions to the Public Investment Fund as well as, to a much greater extent, the Kingdom’s foreign reserves.
