Steffen Hertog, a Gulf specialist and associate professor at the London School of Economics and Politics, affirmed that the Saudi reforms in the past three years give hope to achieve a competitive economy, away from oil.
Riyadh has started the implementation of a roadmap in order to push Saudi Arabia towards the post-oil era – the roadmap stands on reforms that took place during the past three years, which had a positive effect, he added.
In a lecture on the requirements to transform the kingdom to the post-oil economy, Hertog said that the Saudi private sector has been depending, until recently, on the state in terms of financial support but it will most probably play a greater role through partnerships with the public sector in the latest economic reforms.
The lecture was organized by King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies on Wednesday in Riyadh.
Hertog continued that amid the latest reforms, it has become possible to implement an actual roadmap to achieve solid dependency on non-oil economy, especially with the variation of the labor market and the response to the taxation system – this contributes to these reforms without representing a burden on the private sector and the operating firms in the kingdom’s market.
He considered that the Saudi sovereign fund can achieve a lot for the sake of reinforcing these reforms through increasing expenses of productive sectors, supporting local investments, supporting vital industries, diversifying exports, mounting non-oil industries and increasing their competitiveness in global markets as well as raising non-oil revenues.
