The results of economic and investment reports during the past years show slow and negligible progress in the vision of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman 2030, which, according to what he said, is aimed at diversifying the Kingdom’s economy and abandoning absolute dependence on oil.
The significant decline in the completion of the first phase of Vision 2030, whose results were scheduled to appear strongly in 2020, has many reasons, the most important of which is not the decline in oil prices and the Saudi state’s revenues from it, but rather the weak capabilities of the Crown Prince and the government assisting him in managing the file, and many projects like NEOM project and The Line.
The biggest reason, which came as a result of the inexperience of the Crown Prince and his government men, is the reluctance of the foreign investor to work in the 2030 projects and even work in the Kingdom’s market in general due to the Crown Prince’s political and economic shortcomings.
These projects are greater than the capabilities of the state and the inexperience of its men, as well as the poor performance and repeated failures in projects included in Vision 2030, and the decline in economic growth to less than 1% indicates that KSA is not competent to complete these projects.
International agencies had shown reports of MBS’ failure in his plan. Bloomberg News Agency said: The Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is not completely satisfied with the progress of the work plan in the Vision 2030 projects, and believes that it must be reviewed again.
The evidence of project reduction, merging some of them, modifying others, and the replacement of the boards of directors of other projects, was evidence of the reality of Bloomberg’s report on the failure of Vision 2030, which has not been achieved so far, as the completion of its tourism projects in the west of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Since Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman launched Vision 2030, the Kingdom has received strong economic blows, including the Saudi oil giant Aramco, which led to the disruption of half of the Saudi oil production, due to the war waged by bin Salman on Yemen.
Before that, the major scandal of bin Salman’s assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country’s consulate in Istanbul, which painted a dark picture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the international public opinion.
As well as the policies of political repression practiced by bin Salman against the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has led to a state of tension among the business elite in New York; Hollywood’s biggest tycoon, Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs who once greeted him in Washington, D.C. in 2018, as a young reformer eager to collaborate for the betterment of his country.
Emmanuel completed his company’s planned $400 million investment in KSA in early March 2019, though; other Americans quietly took the opportunity to make money in Saudi Arabia by exploiting the inexperienced conditions due to the inexperience of MBS and those around him.
The difficult financial situation of KSA and the systematic violations of human rights in it, and the tension within the ruling family, made the “Vision 2030” launched by MBS as a mirage in the desert with no real achievements.
