Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman earlier threatened that by 2024 his government would cease doing business with any international companies whose regional headquarters were not based within the kingdom.
According to the Gulf States Institute in Washington, Saudi officials are speaking with undue confidence about the plan to relocate multinational corporations’ regional headquarters to their nation.
“Despite the tense regional mood imposed by the Israel-Hamas conflict and global uncertainties associated with the Russia-Ukraine war, Saudi officials nevertheless struck a confident tone about the RHQ Program at the 2023 Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh,” the Gulf Institute stated.
The Saudi finance minister, Mohammed Al-Jadaan, said, “The deadline is not new, and yes it will be implemented,” and explained that the RHQ program is “not just a negative reinforcement. There’s a lot of positive reinforcement as well.”
Earlier in November, the Saudi minister of investment, Khalid al-Falih, said, “We tick all the boxes,” as a destination for investment flows.
It is worth noting that the Saudi plan sowed discord between Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). This came after MBZ manipulated MBS and drove him towards failure and corruption. Initially, the UAE experienced some unease, but it soon overcame it and started to involve the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in systematic crises in Yemen and with other Gulf states to keep its affairs unstable—a feat that MBZ was able to accomplish due to MBS’s foolishness.
As the deadline draws near, the crucial question at hand is how committed will Saudi officials be to putting the necessary policies into effect?
This question is necessary for specialists to ask because of the risks associated with the region and the unstable situation that the Kingdom found itself in as a result of MBS’s failure. This is especially true given that Saudi government spending is anticipated to reach $333 billion in 2024.
Additionally, MBS made significant promises to large corporations to award them contracts of significant value during a period when many projects were shelved due to their lack of value or because the budget could no longer support the funding needed for those imaginary projects in terms of concept, value, interest, and execution. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the now-defunct NEOM project.
Will the Saudi government live up to MBS’s grandiose promises, or will big business, predictably, do nothing in response to his ill-advised threats?
