Saudi Arabia and MBS are Far From Breaking Their Reliance on Oil

Around a decade ago, Saudi Arabia’s now Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the kingdom’s economy would be able to survive without oil by 2020, a claim he linked to huge investments aimed at steering the country into a new era. Today, key indicators show the government remains just as reliant on petrodollars, if not more so.

The push to end Saudi Arabia’s “addiction” to crude oil, as MBS himself put it a short time later, has led to major social and economic changes. Millions more women have formal jobs, tourism has surged and new industries from electric vehicles to semiconductors are growing.