Credit: Reuters

Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — Saudi Arabia has much more to offer than just oil

Economic highlights from the Apr. 27th, 2021 interview.

Doron Peskin, Ofer Shoshan

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• The Saudi Crown Prince reiterated his motto that oil did a great service to the Saudi economy, but could not meet all its needs.
• We aim to diversify Saudi Arabia’s sources of income beyond the oil sector, there are huge opportunities for the country besides oil.
• Saudi Arabia existed before the discovery of oil and the kingdom has great opportunities in many non-oil sectors.
• There is no plan to implement income tax (currently there is No income tax in Saudi Arabia).
• The VAT, which was increased to 15% last July, will stay at that level only for 5 years.
• The government intends to continue issuing shares in the national oil company Aramco. In the first phase, 1% of the equity will be offered to foreign investors.
• he added. He said that once the 2030 vision goals are achieved, Saudi Arabia will publish the 2040 vision.
• “My responsibility is to secure and build the future of Saudi citizens in the long term, for the next 20–30 years”.
• The unemployment rate before the vision reached 14%. We aim to reduce it to 11% this year, and to 7% by 2030.
• We are close to achieving the vision goals long before 2030.
• This year sees a significant recovery in economic performance.
• We aim to increase the Saudi wealth investment fund to 10 trillion reals (about $ 2.6 trillion) by 2030.
• The investment fund will spend 160 billion reals (about $ 43 billion) in the kingdom this year.