ASSESSMENTS

Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 Plan Is Too Big to Fail -- Or Succeed

Jul 27, 2018 | 09:00 GMT

A display promotes Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 economic reform campaign at the 2017 GITEX technology exhibition in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

A display promotes Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 campaign at the 2017 GITEX technology exhibition in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Though it remains a Saudi priority two years after its 2016 launch, the ambitious economic reform plan has stalled in the face of rising oil prices.

(GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

Since 2016, Saudi Arabia has been urgent in pursuing its aggressive economic reform efforts, but since oil prices have risen, these efforts have shifted and slowed.
Riyadh hopes to grow its foreign investment and private sector activity, but it will struggle as its regulatory environment is continually shifting.
Everything in the kingdom, from social practices to regulations, is still tightly controlled by the state, which will continue to invite wariness from investors and Saudi citizens.
Though Riyadh may be tapping the breaks on some of its initiatives, this is not a sign that the troubles Vision 2030 is facing are fatal — or even entirely unexpected; rather, they are part of a familiar cycle.

After Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the kickoff of Saudi Arabia's massive Vision 2030 economic reform plan in 2016, his country's government charged toward implementing many of the sweeping changes it hoped to make over the course of almost a decade and a half. It was going to diversity its economy, boost private industry, make investment easier, reduce unemployment, increase innovation and modernize the country in countless ways both social and economic. Now, only two years later, the mainstream media is already asking if Vision 2030 is failing....

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