last highlighted date: 2024-11-24
Highlights
- I didn’t see a lot of women driving. But every one of the many women we met (as well as the men) commented—almost word for word—on the remarkable social and economic changes that have come to the kingdom over the last seven years under its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS.
- And there is much to extol. Vision 2030, MBS’s plan to modernize the country and diversify its economy away from oil, is, well, visionary. But importantly, officials seem to be paying as much attention to how they are executing it as they are to how they are selling it to foreign visitors and investors. The plan is ambitious, and while some targets are already being met or exceeded, the government is almost certainly going to face shortfalls and will have to scale back.