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Tom Hussain

Almost a decade after launching the Vision 2030 programme to diversify its oil-dependent economy, Saudi Arabia is redirecting its spending away from attention-grabbing futuristic urban projects into sectors that hold more promise to deliver results.
Since last year, the programme has undergone a review following a US$8 billion writedown at the end of 2024. The kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has scaled down glitzy projects significantly, such as the US$500 billion 170km (105 mile) long flat city, The Line, in the northwest Neom region.
The value of construction contracts awarded by Saudi authorities plunged by 72 per cent year on year during the second quarter of 2025, according to an investor briefing issued by Kuwait-based asset manager KAMCO Investment in July.
The US$925 billion PIF sovereign wealth fund is expected to soon announce a revision to Saudi Vision 2030, first unveiled in 2016. Saudi officials have already identified artificial intelligence and technology, logistics and transport, mining and tourism as Riyadh’s new focal areas.
Neom was not mentioned in the 2026 budget announced in early December, by Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan.

This first omission of Neom since the project was unveiled in 2017 showed that the country’s megaprojects were being “recalibrated to ensure that they are delivering what they are meant to deliver”, Jadaan said.
“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 without blinking.”
The proposed city of Neom was originally slated to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games. Within Neom, the Trojena resort has been positioned as a mountain tourism destination, including facilities for winter sports and luxurious flats.
However, problems at the Trojena resort forced Saudi Arabia’s Olympic Committee to announce the indefinite postponement of the Games on January 23, highlighting the challenges that Riyadh may also face in delivering other mega-events, including Expo 2030 and the 2034 Fifa World Cup.
“One episode alone is insufficient to derail an entire sports strategy, so we shouldn’t expect a Saudi meltdown any time soon,” said Simon Chadwick, a professor of Afro-Eurasian sports at Emlyon Business School in Lyon, France.
‘Greater sense of realism’
The postponement of the 2029 Winter Games signalled a need for “a greater sense of realism about the kingdom’s sporting ambitions”, he told This Week In Asia.
Since global football body Fifa announced in December 2024 that Saudi Arabia would host the 2034 World Cup, there had been a slowdown in spending on sports and a reappraisal of priorities, Chadwick said.
“Now, much of what is happening in Saudi Arabia and across its sports development is being framed in terms of what is necessary for the country to successfully deliver the tournament.”
He said the uncertainties over the mega sporting events showed how Saudi Arabia was still exposed to the vagaries of oil price fluctuations.
Oil prices fell by almost 20 per cent last year, with crude falling below US$60 a barrel for the first time in almost five years in December. However, prices rose to above US$70 on Thursday on concerns that the US was considering military strikes against oil-producing Iran.

“It’s Catch-22 for officials in Riyadh – the country needs to diversify away from its oil dependence but requires oil revenues to do so,” Chadwick said.
As Saudi Arabia seeks to “build legitimacy and trustworthiness, partly through sports”, postponements and delays would raise doubts about its commitment towards the major events that it was slated to host.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said the postponement of the Winter Games was less of an issue because the kingdom was “never going to become a hub for winter sports”.
The other major events that Saudi Arabia will host – the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, the 2030 Expo, and the World Cup and Asian Games in 2034 – are far more significant in terms of Saudi Arabia’s move to focus on the sports and entertainment sector than Trojena, according to Ulrichsen.
Nonetheless, the delay underlined “the practical difficulties of translating glitzy plans into tangible reality”, Ulrichsen told This Week In Asia.
Economic diversification
As part of its aim to diversify its economy, Saudi Arabia has been looking to tap other sources of natural wealth and expand its tech sector, including in AI.
Saudi state mining company Maaden has been lining up investments with international partners to explore opportunities in mineral resources, including rare earths. In early 2024, Saudi Arabia raised its estimates of the potential value of its mineral resources to US$2.5 trillion from US$1.3 trillion in 2016 as part of an ongoing US$207 million survey of the kingdom conducted by China Geological Survey.
Speaking at a mining conference in Riyadh on Tuesday, Maaden CEO Bob Wilt said the firm planned to invest US$110 billion to grow the country’s aluminium, gold and phosphate businesses over the next five years.

Earlier this month, Maaden added 7.8 million ounces of gold to its estimated reserves from four operational mines and early-stage discoveries where test drilling has taken place, boosting the total to 13.4 million ounces.
In AI, Tareq Amin, CEO of PIF’s technology firm Humain, previously said Saudi Arabia was aiming to become the third largest provider of the technology behind the United States and China. While Humain has not disclosed its investment targets, it has announced US$23 billion for strategic technology partnerships and a US$10 billion venture fund.
Ulrichsen said the pivot away from the futuristic urban projects to strategic sectors such as AI, mining and logistics showed that Saudi leaders were capable of changing course to learn from experience and that Vision 2030 was evolving.
Robert Mogielnicki, a Paris-based political economist specialising in the Middle East, said the midcourse correction of Saudi Vision 2030 showed that the country’s economic transformation process was not meant to be static.
“It’s a balance between making a splash and attracting buzz and investor interest with new initiatives, on the one hand, and demonstrating feasible and sustainable development plans on the other hand,” Mogielnicki told This Week In Asia.
“The Saudis ultimately have to respond to where the global investor interest is going, especially if the government wants to push more financing expectations towards the private sector,” he said.


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A plunge in construction deals and the postponement of the 2029 Asian Winter Games have cast doubts on Riyadh’s Vision 2030


A plunge in construction deals and the postponement of the 2029 Asian Winter Games have cast doubts on Riyadh’s Vision 2030.


Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Sovereign wealth fund

France

Paris

Saudi Arabia set to redraw economic road map as megaprojects scale down

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A plunge in construction deals and the postponement of the 2029 Asian Winter Games have cast doubts on Riyadh’s Vision 2030

A plunge in construction deals and the postponement of the 2029 Asian Winter Games have cast doubts on Riyadh’s Vision 2030