Saudi Arabia has just released a 12,000-word, 15-year plan for supposedly revamping its economy called “Saudi Vision 2030.” It seems the oil crunch has motivated the kingdom to at least publicly acknowledge in writing that change is necessary.
The problem is that while there is a lot of grandiose talk in the document about setting up various government bodies and bureaucratic agencies that will look into ways to increase efficiency in various sectors, the essay has precious little detail as to how anything actually will get done. It reads more like a cheerleading document than an actual plan of action. Here are some examples.
The document sees Saudi Arabia as a “tolerant country” that will “welcome qualified individuals from all over the world and will respect those who have come to join our journey and our success.” As it stands now though, non-Muslims are forbidden from becoming citizens, and freedom of religion is outlawed, with no mention of this changing. The first barrier to economic growth is forbidding entire swaths of the human population from living freely in your territory.
While the document does give lip service to privatizations, it is extremely vague when mentioned, only saying that they will be “privatizing some government services” without mentioning which ones. It is, however, very specific when it talks about things like expanding mosques and serving Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, with the aim of increasing annual pilgrims from 8 million to 30 million. Will this lead to economic growth? Only if the added value of each new pilgrim exceeds the spending required to attract him to Saudi Arabia, a question only an entrepreneur can tackle, not a government agency.
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