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Crown Prince: We’ve plans for Saudi Arabia’s development

April 06, 2018
Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman
Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman

Saudi Gazette report

Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, in a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine last month at New York City’s Plaza Hotel during his American tour, spoke about various topics, including the Kingdom’s reformation plans as well as Saudi-US relations and visions for the region.

The interview is set to feature on Time’s April 16 issue. Time magazine’s Editor-at-Large Karl Vick sat with Prince Muhammad for a lengthy 75-minute conversation.

Vick asked Prince Muhammad about the rationale behind his US tour, to which the Crown Prince replied: “The United States of America is one of our oldest allies in the whole world, and we are the oldest ally of the United States of America in the Middle East. And the economic relationship between both countries is very deep.”

On having a good relationship with President Trump, Saudi Crown Prince affirmed “Of course we have a good relationship with President Trump, with his team, with his family, with all the key people in his administration, and also we have a very good relationship with many members of Congress from both parties and a lot of people in the United States. And everyone believes in the importance of both countries working together to take on the dangers facing us and also to continue growing and getting a better future for both countries.”

In reference to dealing with the previous US administration, Prince Muhammad said: “The only difference was in the tactics of how we should deal with that evil narrative of the Iranian regime. So it’s not a big difference. We are aligned 99 percent. The difference is only 1 percent. But, you know, people try to focus on the 1 percent and avoid the 99 percent that we agree on.”

Commenting on assigning John Bolton as National Security Advisor, Prince Muhammad said: “I’m sure when he’s appointed he will represent the views of the United States, and we will deal with him and we will see what happens. But of course we will support him.”

To a key question about the plans for Saudi Arabia, Prince Muhammad explained, “We are now in the third Saudi Arabia which was established by King Abdul Aziz, also known as Ibn Saud, my grandfather.”

“King Faisal came with a really great young team, and among his team were King Khaled, King Fahd, King Abdullah, King Salman, Prince Sultan, Prince Naif, and many other people. And they’ve transformed the country from mud houses to world standard modern cities,” he said.

“But for us as a young generation, we’ve not seen this, because we were born in that great modern city. We lived in an economy that is already among the top 20 economies of the world, and our eyes are focusing on what we are missing, what we can’t do. And we believe that Saudi Arabia until today used only 10 percent of its capacity, and we have 90 percent to go,” he added.

Regarding Saudi Vision 2030 and the industrial developments in the Kingdom, Prince Muhammad said: “We spend $230 billion a year outside Saudi Arabia. If we do nothing, it will go up in 2030 to between $300-400 billion spent outside of Saudi Arabia. The plan is to spend half of it in Saudi Arabia. We have many programs to do this.”

Prince Muhammad added, “We have privatization. At the top of the pyramid we have the IPO of Aramco, pushing this money, pushing other government assets, pushing other assets, and other cash reserves into the Public Investment Fund, and pushing it to be the biggest fund in the whole world, above $2 trillion.”

“Two years ago, the size of Public Investment Fund was $150 billion. Today it’s $300 billion. At the end of 2018 it will be around $400 billion. In 2020, it will be something between $600-700 billion, and in 2030 it will be above $2 trillion. We will invest half of this money to empower Saudi Arabia, and the other 50 percent we will invest it abroad to be sure that we are part of the emerging sectors around the world.”

The Crown Prince also explained about the measures to further improve quality of education. “We are ranked 41 among education systems around the world. France is ranked 40, so we are almost like France, as to the quality of the education system. Our ambition is to be in the top 30 to 20 in the next coming years.”

“We want to drive the best talent, to get the best talent to live and come abroad to work in Saudi Arabia ... So this is a very important thing that we are trying to improve. And I believe in the last three years, Saudi Arabia did more than in the last 30 years.”

Prince Muhammad responded to a question about Islam and the challenges to combat extremism. In his defense of Islam, the Crown Prince said: “We believe the practice today in a few countries, among them Saudi Arabia, it’s not the practice of Islam. It’s the practice of the people who have hijacked Islam after ’79.”

Prince Muhammad explained that the old thought prior to the progressive vision that Saudi Arabia embraced after ’79 is challenged by the prophet practice, he added: “I am young. I don’t want 70 percent of the Saudi population to waste their lives trying to get rid of this. We want to do it now. We want to spend 70 percent of our time building things, improving our economy, creating jobs, creating new things, making things happen.”

The Crown Prince emphasized that both Sunnis and Shiites have equal treatment in the Kingdom. In Saudi Arabia we have Sunni and Shiite sects. We have four schools of thought of Sunnis, we have a lot of schools of thought of Shiites, and they are living normally in Saudi Arabia. And our laws are derived from the Qur’an and the practices of the Prophet. These laws do not specify any one specific sect or school of thought.

Prince Muhammad said: “We don’t differentiate among Saudis based on sects. We live in Saudi Arabia as Saudis in Saudi Arabia.”

Prince Muhammad stated that the focus should be on the end, not the means: “These ends are the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom to work and security. These are the ends that everyone agrees on, that we agree on in Saudi Arabia in our own way.”


April 06, 2018
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