“We have a case of oil addiction in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is dangerous.” So says Muhammad ibn Salman Al-Saud, deputy crown prince and minister of defense in his highly publicized April 25, 2015 interview with Al-Arabiyya. He continued, “We should treat oil as an investment, not a primary or absolute commodity.”
This is precisely the impulse behind the “Saudi Vision 2030.” The plan was crafted by Prince Muhammad – a young but shrewd visionary in his own right – and its aim is to wean the world’s largest oil exporter of its ‘dangerous addiction’ by 2030.
