Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy has slipped into a technical recession for the first time since the 1980s, compounding the woes of a country already grappling with an oil sector pummelled by low prices, the Financial Times reported. The country’s non-oil sector contracted 0.7 per cent year on year in the first three months of 2016, according to official data. This follows on from a weak fourth quarter of 2015, which the country’s statistics agency has now revised to show a 0.5 per cent year-on-year fall in non-oil output, rather than the 3.5 per cent rise originally reported.

After weeks of fasting, affluent Saudis typically spend, feast and travel as they celebrate Eid to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Families gather in gleaming malls from Riyadh to Jeddah, picking up bargains and eating at restaurants. But this year, the celebrations took place in a distinctly more frugal climate, one clouded by fragile consumer confidence and a stuttering economy as Saudi Arabia reels from the plunge in oil prices and the impact of government austerity measures.

Saudi Arabia’s $72bn National Transformation Plan imposes a hefty 346 targets on ministries and governmental bodies with the ambitious goal of ending decades of addiction to hydrocarbon revenues and transforming an economy reliant on the state, the Financial Times reported. The pet project of Mohammed bin Salman, the powerful deputy crown prince, the plan’s targets include creating 1.2m private sector jobs in the next five years, with the aim that half of all Saudis will seek employment outside of the state sector by 2020. Here are five key themes in the 112-page document.

Saudi Arabia’s finance minister confirmed that the kingdom was considering imposing income tax on foreign residents as it seeks to raise non-oil revenues and cut spending to fund its $72bn plan to diversify the economy, the Financial Times reported. Riyadh, which is scrambling to raise funds needed for wide-ranging reforms from fiscal and investment policy to social initiatives, is taking the unprecedented step of tapping global bond markets and reprioritising domestic spending.

Saudi Arabia unveiled plans to more than triple its nonoil revenue by 2020 while cutting state handouts, in a broad bid to reshape the kingdom’s economy amid falling energy prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. The initiative, called the National Transformation Program, offers details on how the ruling monarchy plans to achieve long-term economic change in an era of cheap oil. The overall target is ambitious: Riyadh expects nonoil revenue to more than triple by 2020 to 530 billion Saudi riyals ($141.33 billion).

Saudi Arabia’s leadership has taken up the challenge of weaning the kingdom from its dependence on oil. Ahmed Ameen is just trying to keep his mobile-phone store open, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Ameen hired a foreign worker to operate the shop in Saudi Arabia’s capital four months ago, but the worker left the kingdom after learning that a key part of the government’s economic strategy is to replace foreign workers with Saudis. “My shop is now closed and every day I’m losing money,” said Mr. Ameen, who has a day job and can’t run it himself.

Saudi Arabia’s credit rating has been downgraded by Moody’s because of the long and deep slump in oil prices, The Guardian reported. Moody’s Investors Service said it also downgraded Gulf oil producers Bahrain and Oman. It left ratings unchanged for other Gulf states including Kuwait and Qatar. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter. Moody’s cut the country’s long-term issuer rating one notch to A1 from Aa3 after a review that began in March. Crude prices fell from more than $100 in mid-2014 to under $30 a barrel in February, although they have recovered into the mid-$40s.

Saudi Arabia has announced a series of market reforms aiming to make its $400bn bourse more attractive to foreign investors ahead of a much-anticipated listing of state oil company Saudi Aramco, the Financial Times reported. The Capital Market Authority, the market regulator, plans by the first half of next year to implement the new regulations, including allowing securities lending and covered short selling, a first for the markets of the Gulf states. Limits on qualified foreign investors in companies listed on the bourse, known as Tadawul, will also be lifted.

Saudi Arabia unveiled plans to free the kingdom from its dependence on oil revenues, in part by selling a stake in its state-owned oil company and creating the world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move represents an ambitious attempt to lay out a new economic trajectory for the country in an era of cheap oil. It is the brainchild of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 30-year-old son of King Salman, who was entrusted by his father to oversee what are likely to be jarring changes in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia is raising $10bn from a consortium of global banks as the kingdom embarks on its first international debt issuance in 25 years to counter dwindling oil revenues and reserves, CNBC reported on a Financial Times story. The landmark five-year loan, a signal of Riyadh's newfound dependence on foreign capital, opens the way for Saudi to launch its first international bond issue. It comes as the sustained slump in crude encourages other Gulf governments, such as Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Oman, to tap international bond markets.