How Vision 2030 Is Bringing Saudi to the Forefront?

With the support and patronage of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, May God Protect Him, the Saudi Kingdom’s Vision 2030 was launched, which is the vision of His Highness the Crown Prince for the future of this great country. It seeks to invest from a distinguished strategic location, a pioneering investment power, and Arab and Islamic depth, to achieve Saudi ambitions.

Many accomplishments have been completed in the last five years, and several transformation enablers have emerged, all of which have contributed to real results in government work, the economy, and society, as well as laying the groundwork for future success.

By investing in government digital transformation, chances have been created for growth and investment, as well as some new economic sectors. All of these accomplishments were produced by the Saudi great nation’s sons and daughters.

Saudi Vision 2030 is the post-oil plan for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, announced on April 25, 2016, and coincides with the date set for announcing the completion of the delivery of 80 giant government projects, each of which costs no less than SAR 3.7 billion and up to SAR 20 billion in the Riyadh metro project.

The Kingdom’s Vision 2030, after five years since its launch, focused in its past years on establishing strong and proper infrastructure, building institutional and legislative structures, setting public policies, and enabling initiatives. Its focus in its next phase will be on following up on implementation, advancing the wheel of achievement, and enhancing citizen and private sector participation.

Here are some of the 2030 vision accomplishments within five years: –

Health services

Access to emergency health services has been facilitated within 4 hours, at a rate of more than 87%, compared to 36% before the launch of the vision, and reducing the annual road traffic death rate to reach 13.5 deaths per 100,000 people, down from 28.8, and increasing the percentage of sports practitioners at least once a week to reach to 19% in 2020, compared to 13% before the launch of the vision.

Housing sector

The percentage of home ownership increased to 60% compared to 47% five years ago, in addition to the fact that obtaining housing support became immediate after it took up to 15 years before the vision was launched.

Heritage sites

Many new Saudi sites have been registered on the World Heritage List of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). There is also an increase in the number of heritage sites that can be visited in the Kingdom in 2020 AD to 354 sites after it was 241 sites in 2017.

The Saudi identity has been strengthened, as the number of intangible cultural heritage elements registered with UNESCO has now become 8 elements, down from only 3 elements before the launch of the vision, and the number of urban heritage sites registered in the National Cultural Heritage Register reached 1,000 sites in 2020. This is compared to only 400 sites in 2016.

Pilgrimage

There is an increase in the absorptive capacity to receive pilgrims, through the expansion of the system of services of the Two Holy Mosques and the holy sites. The process of obtaining an Umrah visa has been automated, so that the duration of obtaining it becomes only 5 minutes, while it previously took 14 days, in addition to the launch of the “e-tourist visa” that can be Get it electronically in minutes,

Sports & culture

The quality of life in the Kingdom has been improved by attracting and organizing several world-famous sporting events. The entertainment events they launched have been succeeded, including the launch of more than 2,000 sports, cultural and voluntary activities – attended by more than 46 million visitors until 2020 – which led to a doubling of the number of people The companies operating in the entertainment sector amounted to more than 1,000 companies, which contributed to creating more than 101 thousand jobs until the end of 2020.

Environment

Many preserving, sustaining, and protecting the environment have been achieved, including the establishment of seven royal nature reserves in 2018 and 2019 to preserve plant and animal species and be a living genetic reservoir, and achieve global achievements in the production of desalinated water.

 The Kingdom topped the global production of saline water desalination with the highest production capacity of the Saline Water Conversion Corporation which amounted to 5.9 million cubic meters per day in 2020, and the replacement of thermal technologies and the expansion of the use of environmentally friendly technologies contributed to achieving a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 28 million tons annually.

 In addition to the announcement of giant projects to preserve the environment, the most recent of which are the “Green Saudi Arabia” and “Green Middle East” initiatives, which aim to raise vegetation cover, reduce carbon emissions, combat pollution, and land degradation, and preserve marine life.

Economy

Due to vision 2030, there has been an environment that supports business capabilities, expands the economic base, and the assets of the Public Investment Fund doubled to reach about SAR 1.5 trillion in 2020 after it did not exceed SAR 570 billion in 2015.

It is worth noting that the rate of international foreign investment flows has decreased by 58% since 2015, in addition to the growth of foreign direct investment flows in Saudi Arabia to reach SAR 17.625 billion, an increase of 331% from SAR 5.321 billion before the launch of the vision.

These initiatives also included launching major projects to contribute to the welfare of society, provide jobs and attract global investments, the most important of which are: NEOM, Qiddiya, Red Sea projects, and others.

Enterprises

There are many achievements in the areas of creating jobs for the future and supporting innovation, by supporting small and medium enterprises as one of the most important drivers of economic growth, most notably the Kingdom’s 12th rank in the indicator of the availability of venture capital in the Global Competitiveness Report 2020.

 The Kingdom also advanced in the Global Competitiveness Report 2020 to 24th place globally, and it was 39th in 2018, while Saudi women’s participation in the workforce increased to 33.2% in 2020 from 19.4% in 2017, in addition to developing laws that Protect and promotes their rights at the personal and professional levels.

Increase in non-oil revenues

There is an acceleration in the growth of the non-oil GDP percentage of GDP, and this coincided with the launch of pioneering initiatives, including the launch of the “Made in Saudi Arabia” program, the launch of the “Shareek” program to enhance partnership with the private sector and increase the pace of GDP growth, and the establishment of the Export Bank import, and the launch of the mining investment system.

Digital Economy

In the field of the digital economy, the Kingdome has achieved first place in the world in the speed of the Internet on the fifth generation and covering more than 60% of the main cities and 45% of other cities through the deployment of more than 12,000 tower that supports the fifth generation of technology.

It also achieves the sixth place within the group of 20 in the global index of cyber security of the International Telecommunication Union, and the expansion of fiber-optic network coverage, as 3.5 million homes were covered in urban areas with fiber-optic networks in 2020, down from 1.2 million homes in 2017, in addition to attracting the largest technology investments in the Middle East and North Africa, with deals exceeding six billion riyals in the cloud computing sector.

Energy

In the field of energy, the Kingdom has established the OPEC Plus group of oil producers, which reached the year 2020 a historic achievement represented in achieving the largest reduction in production known to the oil market, which contributed to restoring stability and balance to global markets and facing the effects of the Corona pandemic on the global economy.

Circular carbon economy

The Kingdom also encouraged the concept of a circular carbon economy adopted by the Group of Twenty, proving the Kingdom’s commitment to protecting the environment and combating climate change within the framework of the Paris Agreement and the relevant international conventions.

More Housing Units

The first project of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques’ initiative for renewable energy, the Sakaka power plant project, was also opened, and other projects for the production of electricity from solar energy were announced in different regions of the Kingdom. Some of these projects have achieved new records represented in recording the lowest cost of purchasing Electricity produced from solar energy in the world.

In addition, the total energy of these projects is estimated at more than 3,600 megawatts, which will provide power for more than 600,000 housing units, in addition to several clean energy projects to produce hydrogen and ammonia.

More universities and colleges

The contributions of the vision programs in creating an environment conducive to developing skills and continuing investment in education and training, as the number of universities and colleges reached 63, while the published scientific research reached 33,588 research, compared to 15,056 research in previous years, with an increase of 223%. Kindergarten enrollment increased to 23% from 13%.

Military Industries

Many military industries have been localized, as the Kingdom’s Vision, 2030 programs were able to raise the percentage of localization in the sector to reach 8% by the end of 2020, after it was 2% in 2016.

For the first time in the history of the Kingdom, a program for licensing military industries activities was launched, whereby 91 local and international companies were licensed, with 142 constituent licenses.

Channels of communication

Within the scope of updating systems and services, and expanding channels of communication between government agencies, citizens, and the private sector, the Council was briefed on the achievements of initiatives that brought about major transformations in the effectiveness of government work, including the issuance of more than 197 legislation in various fields, including regulations and organizational arrangements, and raising the rate of The maturity of digital government services to 81.3% compared to 60% in 2017, which contributed significantly to the improvement of services provided to citizens and residents of the Kingdom.

Execution courts

The achievements related to the justice facility are qualitative leaps, as the percentage of completion of execution courts has increased to 82%, and the percentage of completion of personal status courts to 59%, strengthening the specialized judiciary system, activating litigation at two levels, and activating electronic litigation, where the number of judicial sessions held has reached more than (10 million sessions) from 2015 AD to 2020, while the number of sessions from 2009 to 2014  (2.7 million judicial sessions), and the number of issued agencies increased to (11 million agencies) from 2015 to 2020  compared to (2.2 million) Agency) from 2009 to 2014.

In addition, Emiratisation agreements were launched and signed with various supervisory authorities to raise Emiratisation rates in the sectors. As a result of these agreements, more than 422,000 male and female citizens have been employed since the beginning of 2019.

In the non-profit sector and social responsibility, the number of volunteers in 2020 reached 409,123 male and female volunteers in more than 156,000 volunteer opportunities, compared to 23,000 volunteers in 2016. The number of registered male and female volunteers reached 533,950 economic volunteers from 0.6 riyals per hour.