Saudi Plans to Amend Vision 2030 Strategy Amid Fiscal Pressure, Says FM
Since the launch of Vision 2030 in 2016, Saudi Arabia has broadened its reform agenda beyond Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s initial plan to reduce the kingdom’s reliance on oil revenue.
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Saudi Arabia is planning to release an amended strategy for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 programme as the country aims to revise its priorities amid fiscal pressure.
Saudi Arabia’s Finance Minister, Mohammed Al-Jadaan, announced that the government is currently deliberating on how to convey its five-year strategy.
“We continue to reprioritize, [and] rework our policies, making sure that we enhance as we go to ensure that we enable the private sector to lead the economy,” Al-Jadaan shared on the sidelines of the AlUla Conference for Emerging Market Economies with Bloomberg.
Al-Jadaan listed tourism, manufacturing, logistics and technology as focal areas.
However, the timeline for releasing the strategy remains unclear.
Since the launch of Vision 2030 in 2016, Saudi Arabia has pivoted from its original plans, laid out by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to reduce the kingdom’s reliance on oil revenue.
Ambitious projects linked with Vision 2030 have been either downsized or cancelled. This includes Neom, a Red Sea development with luxury beach hotels, a ski resort, and a 170 km-long, futuristic city called “The Line”, which was redesigned and substantially downsized, and Mukaab, a giant cube-shaped structure planned for downtown Riyadh, whose construction was suspended.
The changing dynamics of the programme and its projects have prompted the International Monetary Fund, among others, to call for clarity and communication from the government. The government is reported to redraw its plans for major projects, including new stadia for the FIFA World Cup in 2034.
At the end of 2025, the finance minister stated that the government had “no-ego” in cancelling mega-projects tied to the kingdom’s Vision 2030 plan.
“If we announce something and we need to adjust it, accelerate it and make it a priority more than others, or defer or cancel it, we will [do it] without blinking,” he said.
The country has been fine-tuning its strategy to move away from oil as it looks to shrink its budget deficit. Saudi Arabia has been running budget deficits since 2022, as spending on economic diversification initiatives outpaces revenues that are already struggling amid low oil prices.
Officials expect the deficit to shrink to 3.3% in 2026 from 5.3% in 2025.
The Kingdom forecasts its total financing needs at $58 billion this year, with plans to raise roughly $17 billion in international bond markets.
