Saudis seeking diverse economy
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia is throwing an economic comingout party of sorts this week, hawking its efforts to liberalize its conservative society and diversify its economy in a sweeping overhaul of the way the wealthy Arab kingdom has long operated.
In a glittering conference center in Riyadh, slick videos promised a gleaming $500 billion city of the future, powered by solar energy and run by robots. The crown prince lauded a “moderate Islam” that embraces the world. And members of the global business elite attended standing-room-only sessions on sustainable energy and the future of urbanization.
The message to bankers, businesspeople and highrolling investors was clear: The once-insular kingdom is now open for business.
“Today we have a people who are convinced that by working very strongly together, Saudi Arabia and all of its projects and programs can reach new horizons in the world,” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Tuesday at the conference.
Despite the royal rollout, including a lavish dinner with sushi, lamb and overflowing trays of chocolate truffles, the prince’s grand plans have proceeded haltingly.
The government, in an effort led by the 32-year-old crown prince, has made some remarkable social changes, including promising women the right to drive and curtailing the powers of the religious police. But it has so far failed to make much progress on transforming the kingdom from a petro-state into a diverse, productive economy capable of growth at a time of cheap oil.
It remains unclear to what extent top-down decrees and dramatic announcements will spur meaningful change in a society long characterized by deep religious conservatism and heavy dependence on the state.
Still, many people are taking the new push more seriously than previous efforts. More than 3,500 private-equity investors, corporate chief executives, heads of global organizations and government officials from dozens of countries flocked to this week’s conference, making Riyadh a who’s who of international business leaders studying the kingdom’s moneymaking prospects.
The crown prince has proposed a range of changes under the banner of Saudi Vision 2030 that would once have been unthinkable: increasing the number of Saudis in private employment, including women; soliciting foreign investment; and selling shares of the state oil monopoly, to raise capital to invest elsewhere.
“The crown prince is a change agent on a very big scale, and this conference is a very big signal about how rapid is the pace of change, and that it is really happening,” Daniel Yergin, an energy strategist who attended the conference, wrote in an email. “This is driven by the recognition that an economic model based largely on oil, which worked for four decades, is no longer sufficient when 70 percent of the population is 30 years or younger, oil prices are volatile, and the world is going digital.”