A plan of Saudi Arabia, called “Vision 2030” and financed with hundreds of billions of petrodollars, aims to prepare for the post-oil era, to take control of the technologies of tomorrow, but also to impose the influence of the kingdom on worldwide…
Mohammed Ben Salmane, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, arrived in Paris this week for a stay in France of around ten days. On the program, an interview with Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace on Friday then a stay in his sumptuous castle of Louveciennes, in the Yvelines. But “MBS” will also and above all participate in a Summit on the financing of the developing world and do a good dose of lobbying so that his country wins the organization of the 2030 World Expo. impressive raid carried out by the kingdom in the world of football, to recruit, among others, Cristiano Ronaldo or Karim Benzema.
Since coming to power, “Mohammed Bin Salman has tried to impose the financial power of Saudi Arabia while making people forget his shadowy side, after his banishment caused by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. And he has a powerful tool for this: the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia, endowed with 600 billion dollars, a windfall that allows him to invest in many sectors all over the planet, like never before.
The public investment fund is the financial lever of a plan drawn up by Saudi Arabia and called “Vision 2030”, as indicated by the Washington Post last January. It has already made it possible to invest in digital services, sport (takeover of the Newcastle football club, attempts in golf or Formula 1), electric cars (Lucid Motors Inc.), video game manufacturers ( Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts) and funded new futuristic desert cities powered… with renewable energy! A shame for the world’s second largest oil producer.
Tourism is also targeted, with massive investments in luxury resorts, cinemas and entertainment complexes. And the expected returns on investment are colossal: the kingdom has set itself the goal of accumulating more than $2 trillion in assets by 2030.
That all these investments pay off is not the main thing. The ultimate goal of the fund is to diversify the kingdom’s economy, which today is largely dependent on oil, and to project Saudi influence around the world. It is also about accessing patents and new technologies developed in Europe, the United States and Asia, in order to enrich local industries. A Saudi team is said to have moved to New York to manage a growing portfolio of US stocks.
Politics is never far too, as when the Saudi fund, led by a very close friend of Bin Salman, invested 2 billion dollars in the private equity firm of Jared Kushner, six months after the departure of his beau -father Donald Trump of the White House. A Kushner who refused to condemn the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, yet an American resident, when he himself was an adviser to Trump…
