Vision 2030 and Entrepreneurship in Saudi

The Kingdom launched Vision 2030 in 2016, a 15-year strategy and roadmap for Saudi Arabia to diversify its economy away from oil. It’s an ambitious plan to modernize the Kingdom to serve its youthful population and create millions of jobs that it needs for the stampede of young Saudi men and women graduating from colleges, domestic and abroad on government scholarships. The Kingdom opened its borders to international tourists for the first time in its history in 2019, in hopes that Tourism will contribute 10% of its GDP by 2030. The Kingdom is also developing a greenfield entertainment sector, to make the country a more attractive place to live and work. Entrepreneurship and small businesses are expected to play a major role in contributing to the country’s non-oil GDP agenda. 

See Infobytes: Tourism Contribution to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's GDP – 2016 vs 2019 vs 2030 Target

A Vision for the People of Saudi

The Vision 2030 was unveiled in 2016 and is based on three pillars that would transform the Kingdom economically and socially: an ambitious nation, a thriving economy, and a vibrant society. Vision 2030’s main focus is to grow and diversify the Kingdom’s economy away from its reliance on oil revenues, increasing employment, strengthening the private sector, attracting FDI and supporting innovation. When you boil the Vision 2030 down to its essence, it was drawn up primarily to support the next generation of Saudis. It is a Vision to reform the Kingdom, not just economically, but socially and structurally, to lead and serve the next generation of Saudis that increasingly are forming the Kingdom’s economy and social fabric. The architect of the Vision is the Crown Prince, His Royal Highness Mohamed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. He himself belongs to the two-thirds of the Kingdom’s 35 million inhabitants, who are under the age of 40.

Driving Employment in Saudi

One of the Vision’s primary drivers is to address the country’s unemployment rate, which has traditionally hovered around 12%. The Vision aims to bring that down to 7% by 2030. This target, in and of itself, is quite a large feat due to the fact that Saudi Arabia has such a large ‘youth bulge’. This means that there are twice or three times as many youth graduating and entering the job-market than those whom are retiring. Add to that, the changing social ecosystem in Saudi that has seen an influx of women join the workforce, which has been supported by the government. One of the first Vision 2030 targets which were met, was the target to achieve 30% female workforce participation (from 16% in 2015); at the end of 2021, female workforce participation reached 33.6%. This is just one example of the fast-changing market landscape of daily life in Saudi Arabia. Ultimately though, this means that the Kingdom must create many jobs that do not exist today to cater to the young and ambitious Saudis – both men and women - that want meaningful and exciting careers.

Also Read: The Growing Number of Female-led SMEs in Saudi Arabia

Entrepreneurship & Job Creation in Saudi

Ultimately, the Kingdom is seeking to create millions of new jobs. In order to do so, the Kingdom is betting on entrepreneurship and SMEs. To diversify away from a reliance on oil, the Kingdom is investing hundreds of billions of dollars into its tourism economy, its digital economy and its sports and entertainment economy, to name but a few of the new greenfield industries being created for the first time in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia aims to emulate what many other economies have done; namely, have SMEs and start-ups generate a significant portion of the country’s jobs and economic activity. In the United States, for example, 44% of the country’s economic activity (GDP) is generated by small businesses, and American small businesses created 62% of all new jobs in the States over the past 15 years. 

Thus, Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in its start-up ecosystem, working to change mindsets and bring about an entrepreneurial culture in all manners of business. Saudi Arabia has been supporting entrepreneurship and encouraging investment in local startups as part of the Vision’s objectives to increase the number of SMEs and their ability to scale, FDI, and most importantly, the private sector contribution to the country’s GDP. 

The past five years has seen a flurry of activity, driven by various stakeholders in the Saudi ecosystem. Below is a quick snapshot of the high-level strategic objectives and targets set out in the Vision 2030; those highlighted in blue are directly or indirectly related to developing entrepreneurship and supporting SMEs in the Kingdom.  At the end of the third quarter of 2022, over 978,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were operating in the Kingdom.

 

 

Read Next: Who Are the Key Stakeholders and Supporters of Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia?

 

Learn more about the successful and the emerging Saudi’s startup and its ecosystem, in the most comprehensive report on the topic to date, The Evolution of Saudi Arabia's Start-Up Ecosystem 2010-2022.