Vision 2030 takes the Saudi economy up and proves it right...

The repercussions of the Corona pandemic, and the ability of the Saudi economy to deal with it, proved the validity of the “Vision 2030”, which was announced in 2016, with the aim of diversifying the Saudi economy’s resources instead of relying on oil.

The Saudi Finance Minister said, on Wednesday, that the “Vision 2030” plan aimed at diversifying the resources of the Saudi economy instead of relying on oil had “proven correct”, especially in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said, “Vision 2030” has proven to be the right plan.

He continued: “With it, the economy was able to effectively deal with the Corona virus crisis, and the government was able to deal with it in a very appropriate manner.”

He added that the Saudi sovereign wealth fund (the Public Investment Fund) invests to stimulate the private sector, and that includes the industrial sector.

Non-oil fiscal revenue

Saudi financial revenue data shows the steps taken by the Kingdom to abandon oil as a main source of income, in conjunction with the Kingdom’s announcement of Vision 2030, which aims to reduce the influence of crude income over financial revenues.

As a result of the implementation of “Vision 2030”, the Saudi budget for the current year expects an increase in non-oil financial revenues by 1.6% from 2019 to 320 billion riyals ($ 85.33 billion), accounting for 38% of the total financial revenues of Saudi Arabia.

While the share of non-oil financial revenues from total revenues in 2010 was about 10%, compared to 90% from revenues from oil and oil derivatives sales.

In 2016, Saudi Arabia announced “Vision 2030”, and Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, pledged what he called the cessation of oil dominance over incomes, which determined the exchange mechanism based on the price of a barrel of oil that year.

Bank mergers

On the other hand, Ahmed Al-Khulaifi, governor of the Saudi Central Bank, said on Wednesday that bank mergers are welcome as long as they benefit the economy, after the largest Saudi bank concluded a binding merger agreement that would produce the third largest Gulf bank.

The governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency added that the institution is currently studying the issuance of new bank licenses.

And on Sunday, the National Commercial Bank, the largest Saudi bank, announced that it had entered into a binding merger agreement with Samba Financial Group to establish a giant banking entity with assets amounting to 837 billion riyals (223 billion dollars).

According to the National Bank’s statement on Tadawul, the merger will take place through merging the Samba Group into the National Bank and transferring all its assets and liabilities to the National Bank.

Upon completion of the merger, the National Bank will continue to exist, while the Samba Group will expire and all its shares will be canceled, and the National Bank will issue new shares to the shareholders of the Samba Group.