Financial and Economic Reforms in Saudi Arabia: ‘Vision 2030’and ‘NTP 2020’
2017 Volume 4 Pages 61-71
Details
2017 Volume 4 Pages 61-71
The rapid decline in Saudi Arabia’s oil revenue has forced its economy into depression. While the government maintained its expenditure at a high level in 2014 and 2015 to prevent a decline, the economy gradually ran into depression. The government issued a treasury bond to domestic banks in July 2015 to finance its deficit and prevent a rapid decrease in the foreign reserves of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA, the central bank). The government continued its issuance.
The government realised that the oil prices would not recover to their earlier high levels of more than $100 per barrel. Therefore, towards the end of 2015, it took certain steps to reform its financial structure, cutting its energy subsidies and trying to increase its revenue. During the same time, Mohammad bin Salman, the deputy crown prince, started conceiving fundamental financial and economic reforms. On April 25, he announced ‘Vision 2030’. On May 7, he restructured the ministries and reshuffled the cabinet, creating a super ministry, i.e. the Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources. The super ministry with a non-royal minister will be the key ministry to implement the reforms.
The vision expressed an idea of reforms. The details of reforms were not announced in the vision. The Saudi Arabian government had tried to reform its economy and financial structure in some decades. However, it never obtained the desired results, which shows the difficulties encountered in implementing reforms. The idea of reforms showed in ‘Vision 2030’ seems to have several difficulties to implement.
On June 6, the Saudi Arabian cabinet approved the National Transformation Program (NTP) 2020, a detailed plan for the next five years, pertaining to the overall ‘Vision 2030’. Notably, NTP has made no mention of the IPO of Saudi Aramco. Obtaining a good result within five years seems difficult. Nevertheless, the implementation of NTP may contribute towards strengthening the power of the deputy crown prince.
