Today is a historical day for Saudi Arabia. It is a day on which the country is laying the foundation of its long-term plans for the future — its vision of the days to come. It is an important day for us and for our future generations.
For decades, we have been talking about and discussing what would happen to the country when the cornerstone of our economy, oil, would no longer generate the largest chunk of our income. The day the last drop of it would be extracted from deep down the earth, or the day an alternative source of energy would prove itself more economical.
However, the drop in oil prices coupled with numerous other challenges should be seen as blessing in disguise. All these events call on us to stop talking and start doing, to turn debates into agreements, to work on realizing dreams and wishes through turning them into executable plans.
And today is the day we have waited for so long. It is the day we are anticipating announcement of the “Saudi Vision 2030.”
The lineaments of this vision started to circulate in the media after the Bloomberg interview with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in which he gave away a number of points that would constitute the future vision for the Kingdom.
First and foremost, the anticipated vision would not only be about oil, it would be a range of programs dealing with the socioeconomic development. Each of these programs would constitute a number of plans and projects. In other words, it is a vision we want to see turning into a reality instead of seeing it only on papers.
The paramount element of this vision that caught global attention was the part referring to Aramco and transforming it from oil to an energy and industrial complexes company. Less than five percent of the oil giant’s stocks would be available to public around next year. The company’s strategic investment decisions are planned to be part of the country’s overall investment funds, which will be the Kingdom’s primary source of income instead of oil in the years to come. These funds are estimated to be around $2 trillion, the largest Sovereign Wealth Funds in the world. This fund will work on expanding the Saudi foreign investments to be more than 50 percent of the fund’s assets by 2020.
As of now, Norway leads the largest Sovereign Wealth Fund at $824.9 billion followed by Abu Dhabi at $773 billion, while the Saudi current funds rank fourth at $632.3 billion. So you can imagine how huge the Saudi $2 trillion planned funds would be.
It is expected that by the year 2020, Saudi non-oil revenues would grow to be around $100 billion (a huge jump in four years only). The ultimate goal of the Saudi vision though would be having an economy dependent on non-oil revenues in no more than 20 years from now.
We cannot wait to see the different aspects of this vision laid out in front of us with all the details. Important as it may get, we still need to realize that having a plan is not enough. The best of the plans would mean nothing if it miss its way toward the final results. This vision will put a responsibility on all of us, everyone in his and her own position is expected to help and support and work. The underlying objective of all of this is yet very simple — we want to be sure of one thing, that tomorrow is better than yesterday.
