Five years after Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister, and Chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs - His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the Saudi Vision 2030, the current year of 2021 recorded a practical movement on the ground for the execution of the Vision projects.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, bestowed by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aims to capitalize upon its nation’s strengths to become a leading economy and an example for sustainable development. There have been remarkable successes across the vision’s pillars (i) Vibrant Society; (ii) Thriving Economy; and (iii) Ambitious Nation. In an interview with local Saudi television, the Crown Prince provides further insight related to the vision that was launched by the Kingdom in 2016, and progress achieved since then.

Trade Arabia reported on April 28, 2021 that many of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 goals have already been achieved, or will soon be achieved prior to 2030. The Crown Prince also mentioned that the unemployment in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of Vision 2030 was about 14 percent. In the first quarter of 2020 reached 11 percent. Another notable achievement pertains to the goal of increasing the Public Investment Fund’s assets from SAR 600 billion to over 7 trillion. Talking about the sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said: “Our goal is to ensure that the fund achieves growth. We aim to increase the fund’s assets to SAR 10 trillion in 2030.” At the announcement of the program, named Shareek, the Crown Prince said Saudi Aramco would lead investments in the private sector to the tune of 5 trillion riyals ($1.3 trillion) by 2030.

In terms of VAT and Tax issues, The Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that

The GCC has agreed on the VAT to be 5 percent, between 5 to 10 percent the value added tax and it will be set so that it would be the lowest in the world. As you well know, in Saudi Arabia a third of its population are not Saudis, and with the huge economic growth, the population number grows as well as the number of foreigners, and in 2030, 2040 it might reach 50 percent foreigners, 50 percent Saudis. If we do not set VAT, especially with the opening of the tourism and targeting 600,000 tourists, there will be a lot of leakage of these subsidies. So, the 10 percent, the 5 to 10 percent will ensure that the cash that the foreigner benefits from what’s consumed. That will go back to their government and the government will spend it in education, health, infrastructure or even salaries and other things from the other aspects. The 15 percent, due to the pandemic and the economic challenges that the whole world has faced in 2020 they all still constitute a big part of the income of Saudi Arabia, and we have seen that the oil prices have reached less than zero in 2020, so it was a big challenge. So, there was a number of decisions including the VAT. It’s a temporary decision. It will continue for a year, maximum five years, and then things will go back to what they were