A Saudi revolution in convoluted times
Collaboration and Communication
“It’s a good time to be a woman in Saudi Arabia,” said the CEO of a bank over dinner at Riyadh’s fashionable Cipriani restaurant. She – for it was a she – is not alone in thinking that. In fact, the most senior role in the Saudi diplomatic service, Ambassador to Washington, is held by Princess Reema Al Saud, another foreign educated female in her 40s.
A policy including transport subsidies, childcare support and employer incentives for hiring women has resulted in the proportion of Saudi women in work doubling in only four years to 33 percent, exceeding the 27 percent average for the Middle East and North Africa, notes the IMF.
The role of women is not the only change in a country undergoing a seismic shift into a technologically-driven, innovative land. Demography, purpose and funds are the three foundations upon which Mohammed Bin Salman’s Vision 2030 is being built.
Demographic Dividend
Two thirds of Saudi Arabia’s 36m population is under 35 years old. With a fertility rate of 2.3 per woman, the young will continue dominating, although the birth rate has fallen substantially over the last years and that fall will likely accelerate as women take up more working roles. This is one reason for the Crown Prince, known as MBS, to pursue his framework for development at a brisk pace – one look at archenemy Iran provides another.
Iran’s population numbers a heftier 86m, but it has a similar age profile: 60% of its people are under 30. However, without a modernising agenda chock-a-block with opportunities for the young, and with no steady sources of income due to sanctions, its rulers, if they survive, will continue facing riots and revolts – like that sparked in September by the death of a young woman, probably due to religious police brutality.
Purposeful Activity
The second leg of the Saudi development stool is purpose. Vision 2030 envisages the country weaning itself off its dependence on oil revenues and diversifying its economy into sectors including science and technology.
The aims for the tourism sector are among the most ambitious – doubling the number of UNESCO world heritage sites, establishing the largest Islamic museum in the world, and promoting cultural and entertainment activities. This has a couple of advantages. Tourism employs large numbers of people, most likely the young, from both skilled and unskilled backgrounds, while also encouraging an openness to the world that will be hard to row back on.
One of the chosen areas for tourist development is in the northwest, around the town and oasis of AlUla, a stop-off on the historical Incense Road. Old shops are being restored, and local women in full hijab and increasingly more liberal outfits are given the task of running them with the rent and stock subsidised by the state. Cool cafés and restaurants abound, staffed by a mix of foreigners and Saudis, many of the latter on a steep learning curve.
On our recent visit, the tour guide showing us the nearby Nabatean tombs at Hegra – like Petra in Jordan but without the crowds – was a historian whose mother was a Bedouin and father a local. The Royal Commission AlUla (RCA) sends 500 students abroad annually for degrees, mainly to the US, a practice that the central government had been applying for years, resulting in a skilled, English-speaking youth. One of our Uber drivers in Riyadh, between jobs as a town planner, had studied at university in Texas on a full scholarship.
The cleverness of Vision 2030 for youth is that it not only hands them a purpose – pride in their country’s history and beauty, and it in its rapid modernisation – but it also provides entertainment. An example is Boulevard Riyadh City, a 900,000 square metre outdoor area of shops, laser shows, and concerts, built only three years ago and constantly increasing in size and offerings. A couple of weeks ago a female DJ in black leggings and a long-sleeved T-shirt was busy spinning and boogieing to what sounded to our untrained ears like Saudi house music.
The biggest boost to tourism will come from the lifting of the ban on alcohol, rumoured to be happening within the next two years. This will probably apply to tourist areas only, rather like Dubai and Qatar.
Expats make up around 38% of the population, ranging from the most menial jobs to the highly paid consultants from firms like McKinsey and Bain, who are making eye-watering amounts from their work.
Oil Funds
And Saudi Arabia has the money to pay them. The third leg of its development stool are the vast amounts flowing into its coffers due to the energy crisis. Saudi Arabia is making about $1 billion a day from oil exports, according to Bloomberg, marking a 123% increase year on year. The IMF estimates the country will be one of the world’s fastest growing economies this year, with GDP growing at 7.6%.
This is evident everywhere you look, whether in Riyadh or Jeddah, the second largest city on the coast, or AlUla. A plethora of architecturally stunning new buildings spring up continually and the air of excitement is palpable. This year’s annual FII conference, nicknamed Davos in the Desert, was the largest ever, with over 7,000 delegates from all over the world.
What could go wrong?
In a world awash in recession and inflation, Saudi Arabia stands out as the promised land, where vast funds are being applied to create a “vibrant society, a thriving economy and an ambitious nation.” What could be more symbolic than its football team beating World Cup favourites Argentina only a few days ago?
There is, however, one caveat to the fairy tale. “It all depends on one man,” noted a Saudi top executive.
Vision 2030, launched in 2016, was developed with the input of the Council of Economic & Development Affairs, and constant feedback from business, but MBS is key to its implementation. He took power away from the Council of Senior Scholars, the supreme religious body; from the Mutawa, the religious police; from the Saudi financial and political elite, many of whom are part of the royal family, with a well-publicised kidnap of around 500 of the country’s elite, held hostage in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Those actions should ensure that the 37-year old Crown Prince will be appointed King by the Royal Court when his father dies.
That ruthlessness was also apparent in the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, with the CIA ascribing blame to the Saudi ruler. Public opprobrium followed, but was short-lived – most evidently when this summer, vociferous critic Joe Biden travelled to Saudi Arabia to fist-pump with MBS and plead for higher oil production; most recently with rival Turkey gratefully accepting a purported $5bn transfer to its central bank reserves.
Saudi coffee, delicious as it is, is unrecognisable as coffee to Western palates. Saffron, cardamom, ginger, and other spices, add an entirely different dimension. So it is proving with Saudi Arabia’s revolution. An awe-inspiring local creation, but one that won’t suit all palates.