Roundtable: Diversification, recovery and reform

Events / 06-10-21 / Share Link

Diversifying its economy away from oil dependence has been a perennial objective for Saudi policymakers over the past few years, with much pinned on Saudi Vision 2030 as a means of achieving this lofty goal and with the events of 2020 - from ‘price wars’ to the disruptive nature of Covid-19 on global consumption - showing just how much of the country’s economic and regulatory progress remains dependent on the oil sector.

Felix Thompson (Reporter, Global Trade Review), Khaled Almedbel (Director, Business Development, ACWA Power), Professor William Scott-Jackson (Entrepreneurship Expert, Saïd Business School) and Dr Laura James (Senior Middle East Analyst, Oxford Analytica) assessed the redoubling of efforts to grow the economy through trade and exports, whilst also developing a diversified and effective financial sector aligned with the government’s National Transformation Programme (NTP), and how the Kingdom is progressing with its various ‘mega-projects’, from the futuristic city of Neom to the Red Sea Project, whilst also considering the role geopolitical tensions can play in export strategies and in maintaining often complex supply chains.