Decades of earning more money than it spent at home once left Saudi Arabia with huge surpluses to invest abroad. High domestic spending and falling oil prices have now sent that into reverse. The petrodollar spigot is still churning out vast amounts of cash, but transforming the Saudi economy is a costly endeavour.
US President Donald Trump’s hopes of securing as much as US$1 trillion in investment commitments from Saudi Arabia might clash with another costly ambition - transforming the kingdom’s own economy.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plans to diversify the oil-dependent country are likely to cost close to US$2 trillion, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg News. The sheer scale of domestic commitments — calculated by Bloomberg based on interviews with people familiar with the plans, US government projections, Saudi estimates and data from the researcher MEED — are transforming the kingdom’s role in the global economy.
