Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and Its Regional Implication

Abstract

Saudi Arabia adopted Vision 2030 to develop a more diverse and sustainable economy in order to strengthen its position as the center of the Arab and Islamic worlds.  The three pillars of the vision are to build an ambitious nation, a thriving economy, and a dynamic society. Creating an intelligent, creative, & industriousness society is the first theme. The second theme is at aimed creating investment tools to open up new economic sectors and diversify the economy. The third theme is to create highly functional, accountable, and transparent government.  Its excessive dependency on oil, the Arab uprisings and its excessive reliance on the United States for security and defense forced Saudi Arabia to adopt the vision. The general objective of the study was analysis of the "Saudi Arabia Vision 2030" and its implications for the Middle East and Africa.  Particular Goals were developed based on the aforementioned general aim, these were analyze "Saudi Arabia Vision 2030," evaluate the difficulties, and evaluate the consequences of the vision's success or failure. The study is restricted to the Middle East, Africa and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To complement the original data, reviews of previously published and unpublished materials were done. Following that, the gathered data was analyzed.  An emerging G20 economy with young people, natural resource and its strategic location enable Saudi Arabia to realize Vision 2030. The transformation process has faced many obstacles such as the over dominance of Riyadh, internal and external migration, the shrinkage of Saudi products' markets as a result of expensive international military ventures, political and military intervention.  The Gulf crisis caused Saudi Arabia to lose its business and economic ties with Qatar and gave its rivals Iran and Turkey the chance to seize Qatar's markets, the exclusion of political modernization from "Vision 2030". Whether it is successful or not, the Middle East will suffer greatly as a result. If it fails, the Kingdom will be unable to address the rising rate of youth unemployment and uphold the social contract that is backed by assistance. The fear is what how the USA and UK perceived the Saudi proposal to cut military equipment imports by 50%? How the others see it the reform and the unstable regional environment? On the other side, if 'Vision 2030' succeed, it would strengthen the royal families in the political sphere, made Saudi Arabia influential state in the region, the Saudi Fund for Development, humanitarian help and soft loans that are not geographically restricted will be highly continued. Africa will make Saudi Arabia a place where skilled African laborers can find employment and gave chances to Africa to export raw materials.