The Saudi state-run media has praised Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) for his projects and the achievements he will make for Saudi Arabia ever since he took on the role of Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They see MBS as the country’s savior and the boy who will restore its glory and set it free. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, MBS’s dreams vanished, and discussions regarding the previous vision projects had ceased.
Speaking last week at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan acknowledged experts’ warnings that Vision 2030 projects would fail because they lack a well-thought-out economic plan and a future vision. They also acknowledge that, despite costs, the potential of Saudi Arabia is greater than that of any nation, regardless of GDP, and that these projects are nothing more than pipe dreams and illusions that MBS’s media is enhancing to fulfill in order to appease the Saudi Finance Minister.
For the first time and in all candor, Al-Jadaan stated that the state is not happy with the progress being made on the projects included in Vision 2030, as well as the fact that the Saudi government’s goals in these projects have diminished.
Al-Jadaan’s remarks were viewed by economists critical of Saudi Arabia’s capricious economic and investment policies as an official acknowledgement of failure and a step backward.
Others claimed that if the Kingdom had a pure political reality, all project supervisors and employees would have faced criminal charges, saving the government billions of dollars that would have otherwise been spent on projects that provided no discernible financial or economic return.
While al-Jadaan’s confession was not the first in terms of implication, it was the first in terms of clarity. In conversations and meetings, he had previously stated that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia anticipates a budget deficit through 2026 as a result of the cost of Vision 2030 projects. As a result, the government should think about delaying work on some of the Crown Prince’s vision projects until the state budget recovers from the deficit; it is possible that work on vision projects will be continued until 2035.
Remarkably, the Saudi Crown Prince squandered billions of dollars on the NEOM city project and other internal projects, which accounts for Saudi Arabia’s biggest loss.
Reuters had hinted at Saudi Arabia’s worsening economic circumstances, which prompted the nation to borrow from regional banks and secure new financing facilities totaling $2.7 billion to meet short-term financing needs in an effort to preserve the massive projects that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia aspires to accomplish.
In the same context, the Saudi government, having invested millions of dollars in project advertising campaigns, announced that the area and population of “The Line” city would be reduced.
