As a student in politics and by pure interest, I follow relatively closely political events that happen around the world. I’d like to consider myself as an avid researcher and close follower of Chinese intra and inter politics, and subsequently of US affairs too. However, my current knowledge in the Middle East is very limited, and the interactions between countries in that region were unclear to me before the trip. Therefore, this piece will focus more on geo economics related to Vision 2030 and the Saudi economy.

The intention of Saudi Vision 2030 is clear; the Saudi economy has to diversify its economy and shift away from petroleum. However, the initiative comes with its own set of geo-economic considerations.

The Saudi economy is heavily dependent on oil price, and as we’ve seen in the recent years, oil price has not been growing at the expected pace. Furthermore, oil will eventually be redundant in today’s shift towards Electric Vehicles and renewable energy. Furthermore, the Kingdom poured $93 billion into social spending in the past 7 years, and that spending can only be healthily maintained if the price of crude oil remained at about 100 USD per barrel. Yet, at this time, oil prices were about 61 USD per barrel Brent crude. About 60 percent of the Saudi population is under 25 years, the number of working-age adults in the country is set to surge over the next decade. So, even if the price of oil increased, it would not be sufficient to secure the long-term economic prospects of the kingdom. The government needed to reduce its spending and increase domestic revenues from sources beyond oil production.

Theoretically, the initiative promised to step back from the present relationship the government has with the public, where the state provides all the services and resources the citizens need at very little cost in exchange for near complete control over the society. The effort to move away from this social contract is neither easy nor appreciated by the public. For instance, the government’s recent increase of various taxes and prices for services has raised living costs in the country. Furthermore, the current easy way of life that many Saudis had created an educational issue regarding living style and productivity.

A complication for the Vision 2030 initiative is that the projections are based on western models and do not consider the work ethics in the Saudi society, where about 80 percent of the jobs in the private sectors are filled by foreign workers from South and Southeast Asia. This needs to be addressed, as Abdul Mohsin al Omnra presented, in the GCR, Saudi Arabia was ranked 36th in 2019. Furthermore, the push to privatize the economy will mean that low paying jobs (the majority of private industry such as cleaning, service and labour) are not attractive to Saudis who expected high income job. This will mean that in order to have more Saudis in the private sector, they need to be more willing and competitive than their Indian, Malaysian etc...

counterparts (this was seen throughout the trip where most of the waiting staff, toilet cleaners and construction workers appeared to, in majority, not be Saudi). So, even if Vision 2030 could create more job and economic opportunities, Saudi citizens will have to be competitive in order to be willing to take on labour intensive jobs since they have grown accustomed to high-paying jobs in the public sector. Therefore, to truly employ the Saudi youth in the private sector, the leadership in Riyadh will have to take the time to educate its people and cultivate better work ethics among its public. This attitude adjustment will take far longer than the current schedule for 2030.

A central key to diversify is Saudi Aramco. To acquire the necessary funds to invest in the diversification projects, the Saudi government wants to sell share of the company. Initially, the plan was to wait for the IPO to reach a valuation of 2 trillion USD, and then sell 5% on public stock market which, theoretically, return around ~$100billion. However, there seem to be some issues regarding the valuation of the IPO. However, the ~$100billion are just enough to balance the flow of money from the cash reserves, not enough for investment.

With around 22 billion USD annual revenue, religious tourism is at an all time high and is the second source of incoming for the kingdom. It is expected that it will rise by 10 billion USD in the next 3 years. With a reformed visa system, numbers could grow. However, from what I understood from HRH Prince Turki al Faisal al Saud, the current visa system is sufficient enough and does not need any further change. As for its defence industry, Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest military spenders in the world. However, the country has literally no domestic defence industry. Subsequently, the Kingdom imported huge amount of weapons from western nations. Vision 2030 seeks to develop an indigenous weapons and equipment manufacturing. This will create jobs and bolster the economy.

To conclude, the Saudi Vision 2030 is a necessary and ambitious initiative that will put Saudi Arabia to the top in the world. However, due to the nature of the Saudi economy that it beneficiated for the past 50 years, and the current work ethics and spending habits, the privatization and diversification of the economy faces many challenges, which are, to a certain degree, being carefully approached and resolved by the government.

III- Opinions and Comments

This section will be brief. The trip itself has done what I was expecting; opening my eyes about the Saudi culture, country and people. I gained a tremendous knowledge from this trip, and corrected many of my misconceptions that I had before the trip. However, it also did reinforce some of my own personal convictions, and also brought like on economic-political issues that the Saudi government is facing. Most of the feedback will be provided in the form.

IV- Special Thanks

I’d like to thank all of the staff at Gateway KSA for giving me the opportunity to visit and discover this amazing country. I would also like to personally extend my gratefulness and thanks to Munirah for her continuous hard work in making this trip awesome day-to-day; to Kashya for organizing the program; to Faisal for helping us with the opinion piece and guiding us in Riyadh (and also for not being an intern anymore, yes I am checking); to Nikoz and Barnie for their documentation of the trip and also to the rest of the group for being such an amazing

and fascinating mix of people to travel and talk with.

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The opinion piece and the undermentioned comments and observations are from the author of this report. My name is Victor Ma, I am currently 19 years old and a second year undergraduate at King’s College London studying European Studies (European Socio-political studies).

I was born in France and currently hold the French nationality. I grew up in France until the age of 9 where I moved to Beijing, China, and lived there for 5 years. I then moved in 2014 to London, United Kingdom to pursue my studies in High School and now at University. I am fluent in French, Mandarin and English, and I have a basic level in Spanish. I am aiming to pursue a career in international politics and law, and will do my next year abroad in Paris, Sciences Po.