Mohammed bin Salman, son of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and his deputy crown prince, is commonly referred to as the power behind the throne. That phrase falls short after this week’s unveiling of his Vision 2030, the most ambitious reform programme in the kingdom’s history. Whether he succeeds or fails, for now he is the power.
Since his ageing father succeeded to the throne last year, the 30-year-old prince has taken hold of most of the main levers of power: as economy overlord, defence minister and architect of Saudi Arabia’s increasingly hawkish foreign policy. Now he has set breathtaking targets to wean Saudis off what he calls an “addiction to oil” by replacing fast depleting hydrocarbon revenue with income from private investment, privatisation and the creation of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund.
He plans to float up to 5 per cent of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, and place it and other assets in this fund, which he envisages will eventually exceed $2tn and become a global investment force. He fore sees non-oil revenue quadrupling by 2020 from just over $40bn last year, before nearly doubling again by 2030. “I think in 2020 we can live without oil,” he said this weekCHKD.