What is happening in the Global economy? The outlook seems entirely iffy, in the state of flux and bewildered with negative outlooks. The answer is, “Disturbance”. If we analyze the global-environment with respect to economy, we find it clouded with discussions pertaining to hawkish vs. dovish trends of central-banks, rising inflation, hyper-inflation, tanking GDP growth, Russian-Ukraine conflict, energy-crises, broken supply-chains, unemployment, recession-fears, supply-shocks, lower demands, inverted yield-curves, liquidity crises, banking debacles and many other ensuing economic-ramifications etc. all have become talk of corridors and towns.
In my opinion, the global economy seems in shambles, extrapolated perceptions assumed by analysts out of Jackson Hole meetings and other developed-countries’ central-banks are creating disturbances in financial-markets. Simply, the world is devoid of any solid vision, which could steer it towards betterment and prosperity. Major financial newspapers are dreading with inflation impacts. Ask any banker across the globe about his or her medium-term economic-outlook & you’ll get an ugly picture painted.
Welcome to Saudi Arabia, the year 2022 the country surpassed a mark of a trillion-dollar economy according to both IMF and Oxford Economics coupled with GDP which grew at 8.7% in 2022. The annual CPI in Saudi Arabia increased by 2.5% and inflation averaged at 2.47% in 2022 which is “absolutely nothing” against double-digits’ inflation worldwide.
So paradoxically asking, what is happening in Saudi Economy? The answer is, “Growth”. If we analyze Saudi economic ecosystem, we find it filled with positive economic-vibes where the discussion is all about hike in industrial-production, foreign-investment-inflows especially huge industrial-investments, mining-investments which aim to unleash the potential of natural-resources, infrastructure-investments, giga-projects, achievement of economic & financial targets on time, flourishing private-sector, multiplying Non-Oil GDP etc.
Taking global-view, H1+H2 of 2022 were clouded with immense geo-political tensions, with ultimate economic-ramifications. But KSA has remained insulated of all global economic-vagaries, which attests the resilience & robustness of Saudi economic framework which is strengthened by Saudi leadership. The fiscal-year 2022 attracted significant foreign capital-inflows, which proves that Saudi Arabia has successfully positioned itself as a desired-destination of global financial-capital amid the ongoing global-turbulence. Saudi Arabia has successfully averted economic-effects of current geo-political turmoil, in terms of utilities, food-security and inflation-containment etc.
The question arises, how did KSA achieve this economic excellence & resilience in really a short time-span? The answer is, a Vision is being implemented and realized by Saudi leadership with sheer commitment and enabled by Saudi youth. This trifecta is indeed a global successful case-study of how major economic-transformations can happen in a short-period of time.
Delving into more details, the fundamental reason is, in 2016 Saudi Arabia had devised a brilliant Vision 2030 under the leadership of H.R.H King Salman and this was a road-map drawn by H.R.H Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, as a forward strategic-economic framework. Under this brilliant vision, uniquely-crafted “Vision Realization Programs” (VRP) were designed, each tasked with a particular niche to smoothen the regulatory-processes, incentivize deployment of local-resources and ultimately attract private-sector & foreign-investments. All these VRPs are showing satisfactory-progress and many of these VRPs have over-achieved brilliantly.
Another driver of this economic-success is a significant-emphasis on optimizing potential of “Non-Oil GDP”. It is the Non-Oil GDP, which ultimately provided an impetus and incentivized Saudi Private-sector to act proactively. The fuel for sky-rocketing “Non-Oil GDP” is actually the giant private-sector of KSA, whose potential is being unleashed by Saudi government via launching a partnership-program namely “Shareek” which aims to intensify the potential of SAR 5 trillion of domestic private sector investments by 2030. The aim is to maximize the private-sector contribution up to 65% in Saudi GDP by 2030.
One of the attributable reasons of this economic-miracle of Saudi Arabia has been a constant emphasis on Higher Education & Research. For instance, scholarship programs for Saudi students proved to be a stellar success. Today we see countless highly-qualified Saudis, possessing valuable global-experience are now steering many organizations in both the public and private sector of country. Their competence coupled with determination, passion & loyalty for their leadership and the country paved the way for Saudi Arabia to result such an economic-success. Nature Index which tracks scientific & intellectual contributions globally has ranked Saudi Arabia, 1st in Arab World & 30th globally in 2022, which manifests emergence of high quality scientific-output by Higher education ecosystem.
Saudi Arabia was one of the countries, which made headlines across global-media due to smart Covid-management, leaving behind many developed economies. For instance, King Abdullah Port has bragged the 1st-position leaving behind 370 global-ports in a globally-renowned index, Container Port Performance Index – 2021 by World Bank and S&P Market Intelligence, which analyzed performances of 370 ports in post-Covid broken supply-chain scenario. Similarly, Jeddah Islamic port and King Abdul Aziz port have bragged 8th and 14th position respectively.
Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, Public Investment Fund has emerged as one of the smartest-SWF leaving behind many decades-old SWFs with stellar investments. The PIF (AuM = 620 USD billion) with its in-built strong potential has taken lead in investing locally in Saudi Arabia. In any country, a monetary-system always carries immense importance in proper functioning of an economy & solidifies its robustness. This important task is being carried out diligently by Saudi Central Bank, SAMA, which is brilliantly regulating Saudi financial-sector.
Saudi Arabia is taking a lead in developing state-of-the-art infrastructure. Each of the giga-project is adding gross-value of billions of SAR directly to economy and is providing thousands of jobs. I call them; “Super-infrastructure” because they are being developed with a super-vision, led by super-teams, giving super-results and yield a super-future. Recently Knight Frank which is a top-notch and a century-old UK-based real-estate consultancy firm has evaluated the 15 giga-projects up to 1.1 trillion dollars.
Indeed, Saudi success story of economic-transformation and diversification embodies sheer brilliance, commitment and determination, which has manifested wonders in less than a decade as appreciated by the Managing Director of IMF in the recent WEF sessions, in these words, “They (Saudis) are using the increase in revenue very effectively to create the investment environment for future growth for diversifying the economy,”
