Simon Henderson is the Baker Senior Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at The Washington Institute, specializing in energy matters and the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
Articles & Testimony
Change is certainly happening in the kingdom, but it hasn’t been smooth, and doesn’t look like it will be so in the future either.
Three years ago Saudi Arabia announced Vision 2030, an ambitious plan to transform the economy of the kingdom. How’s it going? It rather depends on whom you ask. The basis for business optimism, at least numerically, was outlined by the International Monetary Fund on April 29 when its director for the Middle East told Reuters that it was expecting a slightly higher growth rate in 2019 because the Saudi non-oil sector is expanding faster than the wider economy. But for the moment, oil’s position is being confirmed; indeed, it is increasing...
