Saudi Arabia in 2020: Complete internal fortification & a leading international presence

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, has succeeded in 2020 in implementing an integrated plan that spared the Kingdom the dangerous repercussions of the Corona pandemic and established its position at the international level.

Saudi Arabia has become one of the axes of collective international policy-making to face common challenges facing humanity while preserving the path of development and service achievements within Vision 2030.

The G20 leaders’ summit, chaired by Saudi Arabia, was well-organized and distinguished by its management that contributed to reaching constructive decisions and fruitful recommendations, especially in the field of strengthening international cooperation to confront the Coronavirus pandemic and reducing its negative repercussions on various walks of life, in addition to stimulating efforts to fulfill the entitlements of the sustainable development requirements that all seek and keeping pace with successive developments, especially health conditions.

The success of Saudi Arabia in chairing the meetings of this group embodies the pivotal role it plays at all levels, and it is added to its record of remarkable achievements regionally and internationally. This success also comes in parallel with the great economic and social transformations the Kingdom is witnessing, within the framework of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030. The summit included very important initiatives to support and reform the global economy.

After the summit, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia affirmed the group’s success in presenting a message of reassurance to all peoples of the world through the leaders’ final statement of the summit, which included 38 points.

Renaissance in 2020

The year 2020 witnessed the Kingdom’s celebration of the sixth anniversary of the assumption of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz, who took office on January 23, 2015. The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques led the ongoing Saudi renaissance since its establishment, and moved it to a more spacious and global phase, as the Kingdom has turned into workshops and construction at a time when the world is going through security, economic, financial and development crises.

The outbreak of the Coronavirus this year has dominated all policies in the world, as the Kingdom has skillfully managed this crisis at the level of the Kingdom. At the end of March, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques issued an order for free treatment of Corona patients, residents and citizens. Due to the intensity of examination cases, Saudi Arabia is among the top 10 countries in conducting diagnostic tests.

In April, King Salman bin Abdulaziz issued an order requiring the payment of monthly compensation to Saudi workers in private sector institutions affected by the repercussions of the Coronavirus crisis at 60% of the wage registered with Social Insurance for three months, with a maximum of 9,000 riyals per month, with a total value of up to 9 billion riyals ($2.4 billion), and the number of those eligible to benefit from the compensation reached 1.2 million Saudi workers.

In response to the challenges of the pandemic, the Kingdom organized the rituals of Hajj and Umrah with a minimum number of pilgrims to preserve their safety from the outbreak of the pandemic, and Umrah was also carried out according to a tight plan in stages.

Strategic plans

Corona’s challenge did not distract the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques from following up on the Kingdom’s strategic plans, foremost of which is Vision 2030 of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, considering it “a road map for a better future for everyone who lives in this ambitious country.”

Strategic choice

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques affirmed the Kingdom’s support for the American efforts aimed at achieving peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, King Salman stressed that peace in the Middle East is a strategic option, affirming the Kingdom’s support for the efforts made by the current US administration to bring peace to the Middle East.