Abstract
Saudi Vision 2030 (SV2030), the strategic roadmap for the future of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, aims to decouple the country’s economy from its reliance on oil revenues through implementing several economic and social initiatives. The key economic goals of SV2030 announced in 2016 include increasing the private sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) from 40% to 65%, raising the share of non-oil exports in non-oil GDP from 16% to 50%, and reducing the unemployment rate from 11.6% to 7% by 2030. It also aims to maximize local content by localizing more than US$70 billion of content, make economic agents more efficient and increase government revenues by removing domestic energy subsidies and introducing other non-oil revenue items, enabling further government investment. Developing the Kingdom’s non-oil sector would help it to meet these targets. Fiscal policy could also play a major role, given that Saudi monetary policy originated from the fixed exchange rate regime (pegging the Saudi riyal [SAR] to the US$).
