IF ANYONE needed confirmation that Muhammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, is a man in a hurry, they got it on April 25th. The 30-year-old unveiled a string of commitments for ending the kingdom’s dependence on oil by 2030 that are by themselves laudably ambitious in the puritanically conservative country. Then he trumped himself, saying that the kingdom could overcome “any dependence on oil” within a mere four years, by 2020. It sums up what seems to be a somewhat manic optimism among the youthful new policy-setters of the royal court. Badly needed now is a cool explanation of how to turn vision into reality.
The outlines of the announcement that has generated much anticipation in Saudi Arabia—particularly among women, newspapers say—had been well trailed in advance. They included: the floating of a small stake in Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company; the creation of the world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund to invest in a diverse range of assets; more jobs for women; and more vibrant non-oil industries, ranging from mining to military hardware.
To the government’s credit, Prince Muhammad...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1QyAiZU
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