 Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Hadley Gamble. I work with CNBC News, and I'd like to welcome you to this very exciting panel about building Saudi Arabia's future economy. I want to welcome my guest, first of all, Her Royal Highness Princess Rima Bhandar. Also, she's the President or Vice President for Development and Planning for the Saudi Arabian General Sports Authority. His Excellency, Muhammad al-Saddam, the country's finance minister. Also, Majid al-Qasibi, the Minister of Commerce and Investment of Saudi Arabia. Steve Schwartzman, you're the chairman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone, and of course, your Excellency, Muhammad al-Tawaji, Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia. Now, we're just one year on from Vision 2030, this major announcement for Saudi Arabia, looking to move the country's economy forward, bring them away from a dependence on oil. So much has been done, major achievements in the last year alone. The largest budget announced ever in the history of the kingdom. Lots of movement in terms of economic advancement for women, women will be driving in 2018, some major, major announcements there. But there are a lot of things that people want to know about what's happening in Saudi Arabia today, and we're really hoping to bring some clarity to that. And one of the reasons that we're here is so that the ministers, as well as Steve, can be taking some questions from the audience. So we're going to have about 20 minutes of questions toward the end of the session, and we really want these to be tough questions because the people on this stage want to know what you're thinking and what you want to happen in Saudi Arabia going forward. But before we do that, I want to give each of the ministers, Steve and your Royal Highnesses, as well, a chance to talk about what's been accomplished so far in terms of Vision 2030 and what you have on the horizon for 2018. Your Excellency, if you'd like to kick off. Thank you very much and thank you everyone for making the time. I think a year ago we were, I think, in this room talking about Vision 2030 and for those who may not know what Vision 2030, Vision 2030 is a plan that Saudi government have started couple of years back to deal with two key issues. One is Saudi Arabia is in a region that is troubled. The geopolitical situation in Saudi Arabia is very difficult. And we needed a catalyst for stability. And we believe that Saudi Arabia can actually play that catalyst. So we wanted to be a role model for bringing hope to people. And obviously we start with our people and then when others see what is happening in Saudi Arabia, they will really then push through the reform in other countries in the region. Second, we have been for the last 40 years fortunate with significant oil wealth that has been deployed across the economy, developing infrastructure, developing education, health care, et cetera. But it is actually dependent on one commodity that is very volatile. And with that volatility, planning becomes very difficult. And therefore, the government decided that we really needed to diversify and reform our economy. But then the reform needed to be wider than just economy. So the Vision 2030 is about reform, but reforming the financial discipline of how the government is doing and having more midterm and long-term financial planning, reforming economy and diversifying our economy. And instead of being significantly dependent on government spending, it is planned. Now it is going to expose other sectors, mining, entertainment, tourism and other various other sectors that we could talk about later on. And then reforming socially. And we could talk a lot about this. We could spend the whole session talking about what is happening socially. So it's also about reforming socially. And then reforming legally and regulatory. So we wanted to update old laws to ensure that we have laws that are enforced when they are enacted. And a lot have happened since then. And we could talk about it. In my area, just talking about the last 12 months, we have seen deficits dropping as we promised last year this time. We said we are going to go below 10%. And deficit we did. And now it is 8.9. And we are targeting even less deficit next year and the year after. We said we are going to start significant financial reforms. We did. We applied. We started the VAT first of January this year. We started excise tax mid of last year. We reformed the energy price significantly. But then we did not forget the other side that throughout this transition, you needed to make sure that the private sector is giving a breathing space and your people are being protected, particularly the less fortunate. So we started the citizens in account. We started the first payment in December. We registered more than 10 million individuals through the system. And we started the payment. We also announced multiple private sector stimulus packages, 40 billion mid of 2017, another 72 billion in December, and another 80s coming in during 18. So there is a lot that is happening on the financial side and delivering on what we said we are going to do. Government is committed. There is significant more alignment within the government. If you talk to each ministry now and they really are more aligned. We have one target. We know where we are going. We talk. We align our positions. We plan properly. We spend a lot of times instead of our day jobs in the evenings just making sure that we are aligned. We are synchronized. When we talk about what's happening in Saudi Arabia, you mentioned the social aspect, the cultural aspect. I want to bring you in here because at the end of the day, the new news out of Saudi Arabia is really about economic cities and how that's going to change people's lives and really not only enable women to be much more in the workforce, but also, of course, grow the economy. So when we talk about the investments that the country has made in the past 10 years, industrial cities and economic cities, three new investments that are being made now in the cities are Niyom, Gidea and also the Red Sea. Those three focus completely on the quality of life of the individual. While I work at the sports sector at the general sports authority, I also sit on the board of the quality of life vision realization program. What we're talking about in the quality of life is sports, culture and entertainment and the value chain not only in job creation, but infrastructure building and social development that those three entities bring to our community. The three cities that are being developed will actually allow those three creative industries to thrive at economic impact, job creation, training, so much value that's not just for women. I know I am the woman on the stage, but what I represent is the change of this community that is the integration of the man and the woman, the husband, the father and the daughter. The social impact that we're actually changing is that the family is now engaging collectively in their lifestyle in the way they behave. And that actually translates to how they spend their money, how they socialize with each other. And that's what I'm here to represent, not just the woman's voice, although I'm quite honored to be a woman from Saudi Arabia here today. Minister Al-Qasfi, the question of course is how this is going to impact people's lives. And of course, we know there's been so much movement and so many achievements so far for Vision 2030. But in terms of what happens next, people want to know how they're going to get jobs in an environment that we talk about artificial intelligence in the future of that in Saudi Arabia. But a lot of people are worried about, you know, how do they fit into this path going forward? If I may just comment on, although Vision 2030 is an ambitious pro-active blueprint, and if you say strategy is 5% thinking and 95% execution, now every ministry have created the VR or what you call the Vision Realization Office. And the government have made it possible and have provided all the enablers, money or resources to make sure that our target goals, our target for every ministry is met and through KPIs and a certain monitoring procedures. And by itself, this is creating such a culture among the government institution is an achievement, especially in Saudi Arabia, because we unfortunately in the past, we lack the culture of planning, we lack the culture of looking forward or anticipating going forward. Now, we have a finish line and every ministry is going toward that finish line through proper procedure and proper methodology. And that's also create competition among ministers. Coming back to your Christians, you know that investment is never an action, it's a reaction. People invest based on an ecosystem that is attractive, that is feasible, that's investment friendly. So the first priority that Saudi Arabia did to look from helicopter view over our investment ecosystem, the legal infrastructure, all the legal laws and the revision with Saudi Arabia did not have a bankruptcy law. Saudi Arabia did not have mortgage pledge law. Saudi Arabia did not have a franchise law. All this has been done in the process we expect in the next six weeks, all these laws will be hopefully announced. And it's already been approved by our Shura Council. So the legal infrastructure. Second, ease of doing business, we're leveraging technology. You know, bureaucracy have really people are fed up from government bureaucracy. Citizens are are also complaining about how much time it takes to get a permit or to get. So that was a priority that all these bureaucracy and ease of doing business business track is third, government spending and stimulus government, if you look at this year, that the highest budget in the history of Saudi Arabia has been allocated during 2018. And also $30 billion stimulus package have been announced to the private sector, especially to the small and medium enterprise. Fourth, privatization. And I'm sure my colleague maybe will talk about privatization. And fifth, have level playing field fighting corruption. And it's true, we could make mistakes here and mistakes there. Saudi Arabia is not a perfect country. Saudi Arabia is like any other country. But the journey, as you say, the success or the road to success is always under construction. And that's what the whole momentum of Saudi Arabia is going toward that. And Steve, I want to bring you in here coming from an outsider perspective, foreign investment in the kingdom, you spend a lot of time there. What have you seen that's really changing so far? Because there are a lot of perceptions, perhaps misperceptions since the big Davos in the desert. We had the situation at the Ritz Carlton. Talk to me a little bit about whether that was good or bad for Saudi Arabia. Sure. Well, it's sort of extraordinary what's going on in Saudi Arabia. It's every once in a while, you see a country going through some kind of dramatic change sets of reforms. And from operating almost everywhere in the world, not everywhere, but almost everywhere, that you see that that economic growth and other good things happen when you have intelligent, informed, reform oriented governments. And as an outsider, this is like a case study. And it's happening so fast. And it's so bold. And if you just listen to the other panelists, all the things that are being put in place are things that you find in, you know, best practices in other parts of the world weren't here at all. All of a sudden, they'll be there. And so this is really, it's sort of the 21st century and positioned the country to diversify away from oil, which I guess was somewhere around 80% of its income. And that industry is going through changes with alternative fuels and emphasis on green and so forth. And so if you were the person looking at this economy, you'd say, Okay, we've got a bunch of cash flow. You know, we've got expenses to run the government. But we've got a population where 70% of it is below the age of 30. This is like a massive challenge. And given the expense structure embedded in Saudi, many of the oil dominated countries, you're not going to work your way through success for everybody by just leaving things as they are. So the government's, you know, sort of commitment push to diversify its economy. On the one hand, to provide a better life and lifestyle, which would be viewed as normal in other places, they're going for it. On the other hand, they have to provide a livelihood for that 70% of the people and it's not sitting around and watching somebody pump something. And so part of the 2020 2030 vision is developing industries, broadening an economic base, and making sure that that younger people have confidence in the future and a place to go. You asked a question about, I forget whether it was AI or, you know, sort of modern technology, generally, young people are pretty comfortable, almost all over the world with that world. Some of us who are older, a little less so. And so taking the approach of, okay, let's draw a line as to where we were. And let's build our economy to a greater extent than one would think around modern technology, because this also enables the country to be connected to the world. But it provides an opportunity for younger people to fashion an economic life much more like other places in the world where whether it's people working from home, or people connected with other groups of people. And it's actually astonishingly bold to do it off of this space. So when you have this much going on, as one of the other speakers said, not everything goes 100%. And, you know, people don't understand what it's like to change things. We own lots of assets, hundreds of billions of them all over the world. And we try and improve things and change. And we're pretty good. We get it right most of the time every once in a while, you don't. And the more change you put into a system, the more opportunity there is for something to go wrong. It's important that I think the outside world as well as the inside world that Saudi doesn't overreact to something just going wrong, because it's inevitable. If you look at China, for example, that went through, perhaps the most transformational change in the world history, in the timeframe that they did it economically, they get things wrong all the time. And they expect, you know, there to be a certain percentage of things that just don't work. And they fix them. And they don't get excited about it. And if that fix doesn't work, they put it in a second fix. And eventually they get it. And I think the path for Saudi Arabia will have some of those types of issues. However, what they're unleashing is is pretty amazing. From a Western perspective, you know, it's hard to imagine you don't have like an entertainment industry. I mean, as an American, I mean, I was watching the Mickey Mouse Club, you know, as a six year old, and you just expect there to be entertainment. And now they're going ahead, they're gonna have a whole entertainment sub city, I guess it's about 30 or 40 kilometers outside of Riyadh. And I was at a meeting where, you know, they were sort of briefing entertainment companies. And, you know, why wouldn't you be there? You know, you've got over 25 million people. You know, everybody likes to either go to the movies or go to a theme park or do things that everyone in the world does that the Saudis haven't done. And how, how is that going to fail? So building on that, I think it's important to talk about the planning aspect, in terms of a lot of challenges still to accomplishing what you say you want to accomplishment, there have been some some differences in the timeline. I think it's important to be really transparent with everyone in this room about those challenges and what you see on the horizon in terms of when these things are actually going to come to fruition. So first of all, let's remember this is the top down choice. But it was designed bottom up 7000 plus government employees, university students, consultants spent seven months putting this plan together. So we have to remember that second, we have to remember that the success of Saudi Arabia is a big success for the whole region. And we realize that in this part of our ambition and plan. Third, we have to also realize that this is intensive. This is diverse. And this is extremely ambitious. So if we put the whole thing together, this comes with a package of many challenges. And we've been through two years of execution, if I can summarize those categories of challenges, I'll put them into three. One is capacity. Who's going to do the whole thing? Who's going to deliver? And that's a question of human capacity, question of financial resources, question of time. Second one is around communication. You know, the average citizen will ask what's in it for me and the sophisticated investors say, why would I deploy my money to Saudi Arabia versus Canada or Vietnam? And the third category is cost. This is expensive and anybody here who's been through transformation realize that you need to invest before you realize the benefits of those investments. And I think the big mitigants that we've put together through this plan is first governance, accessibility to decision making, you know, the harmony between government entities, this is a great mitigants. And the second one is discipline. In the sense that, you know, we have targets, these targets are monitored on a regular basis, updated regularly. So everybody knows exactly what needs to be done and how it should be done. So to summarize, ambitious plan, very aggressive, everybody is watching and realize that we have a major role to play regionally and globally. But in terms of execution, we have started and we think for the next couple of years, you will see more of our initiatives getting at the ground through the design of the 12 vision legalization programs. And when we talk about realization, obviously, you're saying that it's going to cost a lot of money to get a lot of this stuff done. And one of the questions that I addressed to the finance minister yesterday in our interview was oil hovering around 70. How is this going to impact what you do and how you spend? Is this about, you know, fixing the deficit or is this about putting more money into vision 2030? You certainly introduced a major budget for this year. What's your take? Two things, I think one, we will come higher oil prices, obviously. I didn't mind at all. But then, unlike what happened in the past, I think what we are doing now, we are saying we are very disciplined. We announced when we announced our budget last year, and we updated this year, a midterm fiscal planning for the first time, something that is excellency. Dr. Brahman has started when he initiated the new unit, which I continued. And now we have a plan and ceilings for the budget from now on to 2030. So we are going to be very disciplined, regardless of the oil price going up. How we are going to benefit from it, it is going to, A, reduce our deficit, build more reserves, both foreign and local, and provide more caution for bad times, basically. All of this is also in combination with all that is taking place with VIF and our diversification. Both they participate in income diversification, because they are going to ultimately distribute dividends in the long term to the government, but also economic diversification where a lot of activities that are done by VIF that goes locally in the local market, tabbing industries that have not been yet tabbed by the private sector, inviting the private sector to participate with them, and being a catalyst for the private sector when it is difficult to invest, they go and invest first, and then the private sector will join. So there is a lot of benefits, but they, again, would welcome higher oil price. We're here to talk about foreign investment as well, obviously, but I want to ask about investors in the economy that are local to Saudi Arabia, and certainly within the region itself. There's a lot of nervousness over the last couple of years, how many quick changes in Saudi Arabia, so many people in the press, at least, claiming that things are moving a little bit too fast, not sure where it was going. But when you look at what's happening today, what are the incentives you're giving to the private sector to continue investing, even if perhaps some things aren't necessarily clear, at least in the medium or short, the short to medium term? Just to tell you that, you know, action speaks louder than word, as you say. Last year, 2017, we had 377 FDI license, new license in Saudi Arabia, permits that for foreign companies to come to work in Saudi Arabia, as compared to 250 to the year before, almost 50% increase in number of FDIs from 48 different nations. These people did not come just for the sake of enjoying the ride or really coming to invest. And as I said earlier, investment is never an action, is always a reaction. So the Saudi government is trying to prepare the right platform in terms of proper legal infrastructure, proper ease of doing business, proper opportunities. And Saudi Arabia has always been the government, the first client or the first customer. And now the government is reviewing the whole procurement law, which has been, I don't know, for 30 or 40 years. And now it's under review and it's under final review. And hopefully this will take will be a game changer for the new investors. So number of commercial registration last year of Saudi commercial registration was almost 196,000. New company was established in Saudi Arabia, of which 17,000 were female on business, small and medium enterprises. Last year, currently a small and medium enterprise is 21% of our GDP, almost one-fifth of our economy. Vision 2030 wants to take it from one-fifth of its economy to one-third of its economy. So government have provided stimulus packages for small and medium enterprises, have provided the platform, have provided the spending. We need to be more also predictable. We need to help the private sector to be more clear. And maybe we need to communicate better with the private sector. And that's in the process in the making. I also wanted to say, if I may have the chance, change. Change is not a template. In psychology, they say change has four modes. Best mode of change is to accept the change. But the other three resist change or tolerate change or reject the change. So that means three out of four is against change by nature. But it's quite the opposite in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia 70% are saying that Saudi Arabia is going in the right direction. The youth, as my colleague said, 70% of our population is below the age of 30. It's actually below the age of 35. Are behind change. Now we might adjust our navigation. We have maybe our, we need to adjust speed. We need to navigate better. We need to communicate better. But this is also a learning process. I want to weigh in on the capital markets. We had that conversation a little earlier in terms of being quite transparent about what happens next, the MSCI. That's all coming online in the next year or so. Talk us through that because a lot of people are interested in how they get in the Saudi market. So again, the vision realization program have narrowed down the areas of focus of vision 2030. One of them is the development of the Saudi capital markets. To start with, the Saudi market is the largest in the Arab world and growing. The number of listing company, the pipeline, is significant. Both family offices and others are coming to listen to Saudi Arabia. Second, the capital markets and the financial markets in general withered so many storms. If you plot down what happened since the early 60s, you will see that the system has a lot of resilience to navigate through crisis, to navigate through very difficult situation. We've seen oil prices at eight dollars at one point of time and the performance of the stock market remains to be relatively resilient, supported by a very solid banking system. However, part of the development of the capital markets is what the investors really want from Saudi Arabia. Whether it's accessibility products, the ability to basically have their capital free to trade derivatives and all these instruments that will make the investment in Saudi Arabia more valuable for those investors. However, the chairman of the program is excellent and he may need to add a few points on that. I wanted to just possibly cover an area that we haven't covered enough in this forum, which is the Saudi Arabian capital market development. I think if you look at what happened in 17 alone and the year to date, significant change. We moved from an environment where we had a T plus two, T plus zero clearing and settlement to a T plus two and response to investors. We removed, we moved from a position where we were not ready for international indices to be included in the watch list. Now we are in the watch list of Futsi and in the watch list of MSCI. We engaged in significant reform in how we will come foreign investors into the public market and that took a lot of effort in designing the qualified foreign investors regime and then enhancing it twice so far just to respond to the market. So the last revision was I think a month ago where we significantly reduced the requirements for QFIs to be registered and investing in Saudi. And today, I could tell you not today but at least three days ago when I had this statistics, the QFIs numbers are highest so far and their investment is the highest ever. We had a dib in November after the anti-corruption crackdown and then now it picked up investors realized that actually it is good for the economy, it is creating level playing field and now it is actually in this highest ever historically in Saudi Arabia. So there is there is a lot that is happening in the capital market. There is also a very positive sentiment as a result of the government announcement on the budget and that we are focusing on capital expenditure and there is a lot of money that is being spent and infrastructure and digitization and technology so a private sector is going to be part of this and that is pushing also the market. We have one of the three or five at least strongest banking systems in Saudi Arabia worldwide and that's not my statement, that's international institution statement and that is supporting the economy big time and we are now looking at the gap between the financial system today and the financial system that we need in 2030 to support the growth that we are taking the economy through and working with the central bank, the capital market authority and the financial institutions inside Saudi Arabia and outside including FinTech and other banking and finance technology to come in and being embraced in Saudi Arabia and welcome. When you look at what's happening in terms of your investment case, Steve in particular, you're looking for a 10 to 12 percent return which is pretty ambitious, talk us through how you made that decision and what you're seeing in the next 12 to 18 months in terms of we go out to the Davos in the desert and usually when people would come to Saudi Arabia they were looking for investment, they were looking for money and that's changed. Well I think it's going to take a while for the international community to watch what's going on in Saudi and then engage and then invest. That's pretty logical, whenever you see a major change you want to see how's it going to work and you heard from the other panelists, you know, we're doing a lot of work, we're putting the infrastructure in place to encourage people to come. So what I was saying in my remarks just in the entertainment area and I saw the people around the table, you don't need a lot of encouragement other than everybody can come and you know we used to own a lot of theme parks, we were the second biggest theme park owner at Blackstone in the world after Disney and one of our old companies was in the room after we had sold it and there's the person sitting there and he's sort of like ha ha ha I can't wait to do this, why not because it's sort of it's some things are like you can't miss and so you don't need a lot of encouragement for that although I think the Saudi government will still do that for like early entrants is my guess but one of the other things is this can be a very diverse economy in other words under the ground in Saudi Arabia is not just oil it's not just gas it's minerals which are almost completely unexploited and with the right kind of government structure and encouragement if you were in that type of business this could be like a really remarkable opportunity because it's easy to find you know you don't have you know huge mountain ranges everywhere where you have to be you know sort of having very high-cost extraction so I think things will build it won't be a gold rush just at once because it takes a while but when you do the right things and people look for investment alternatives and the table is set somebody eventually buys some food and they put it on the table and they eat it and I think this is the right approach to be attracting people that you were at the the Davos in the desert thing that was pretty amazing I mean there was sort of like where we are now except you had much better logistics and air conditioning which apparently is not in this room either and you know you had thousands I don't know two three thousand people and you know this was this was really a good show and you know I think there was about as well managed a large event as you could have you know like engineered and I think it changed people's perceptions because most people around the world that I know never focused on Saudi as an investment destination and you know they just came right out and talked about you know how they were basically changing you know where Saudi was going and they're not kidding it's you know I come from a world where in the West people make speeches and not many things happen as a result of speeches made in the West I mean it's like almost another form of entertainment and referring to the president by any chance I said in the West it's a general comment but but you know with what's going on in Saudi to the extent I understand that these aren't speeches these are action directions and people are are acting before we open up the Florida questions let's look a little bit deeper into what the opportunities are for women I mean we were talking a little bit earlier about perceptions and how Saudi Arabia has has made a lot of strides so far at least in being transparent and open about what happens next but in terms of your building economic cities that will actually improve the lives of the family unit you're going to change those dynamics what do you see on the horizon because so many such has already been accomplished that you don't really get as much credit for perhaps you should so to give an example of what all of the gentlemen are saying on the stage their excellencies are talking about government coordination immediate change business small medium enterprises the crown prince told us go in action as part of the national transformative projects each entity submitted programs that needed immediate delivery that would have quick wins a quick win for us was licensing of women's gyms to you it's intuitive that this would exist it didn't exist in Saudi working with his excellency working with the ministry of labor commerce what we did was create 25 new line items for jobs for women that immediate job impact we worked on trading changing the laws to allow for women's gyms to be legal immediate impact was 500 registrants on the digital site that we created 47 immediately went live because they already existed and felt comfortable and confident enough that the laws would protect them working with the municipality to change the rules and regulations on the sizes of spaces that were needed why because we'd like to promote small and micro businesses for physical fitness because as anyone in the west knows that's how the sports industry works working with the ministry of labor to change part-time and freelance jobs because that's what moves the sports economy then we talk about going to the crown prince and saying you cannot have half of your community not having access to this nation women drive that is monumental change by a leader listening to the community but what does that also mean it means now there's no more excuse on lack of productivity a woman today can't say i couldn't find a car i couldn't find a driver because now you can that doesn't take away from the value of an uber an uber exists in los angeles a keteam exists taxis exist everywhere but now you have the freedom of choice to get yourself to the venue and the location you want immediate economic impact it also changes traffic patterns but more significantly what is now happening is a woman has the choice to breathe a woman has a choice to dream and she can action why because the reforms that their excellencies are talking about are happening on the ground when i was hired i was the only woman in an office of 1800 people a year and a half out right now my team is made up of men and women but 27 women work within the two groups that i'm responsible for whether it's the mass participation federation which actually is our mandate is to get people outside moving and a part of the sports economy not only from the human point of view of getting physical and active but sports economy impacts your health if you save or spend one dollar on sports you save three dollars on health why wouldn't we and so what the crown prince is telling us is this is your nation you are my people what do you need how can i help you and then he gives us we're an authority we're not a ministry he gives us the resources through the ministries to action the change and i see it every day two weeks ago women entered the stadiums for the first time eight thousand women on our first day walked into a sports stadium and attended a match what that meant though the implication and why did it take us a while from date of announcement to date application we couldn't find enough security women to come and man the spaces we couldn't find enough ushers we couldn't find enough volunteers now that couldn't could be a negative or it could be a positive because that's job opportunities and it's not just the employment of those women it's the training of those women so that's two streams it's also bear in mind the uniforms these women are wearing that's more business that's production we're also looking at my light manufacturing and sports materials we have rubber we can make rubber mats we could make yoga mats it's a fad I'm told people like it we can make dumbbells we can make punching bags anything you could possibly imagine that does not need a technical innovation or intellectual property you can make in Saudi Arabia with the resources that we have in our industrial you know production it's all exists there and those are all job opportunities and right now I'm just speaking to you about the sports sector add on to it entertainment add on to it culture in our own nation we have the talent what the talent is looking for is the resources and what our excellencies are actually creating is the pathways to allow that excellence to come in through exchange of knowledge what's on us then is to say please don't just come here and do please come and teach please come and educate and if I could say a model that's phenomenal and sensation is the Disney model they come in and turn around communities and that's what we would like to do so when you're looking at us to come in please don't just look at us as oil and don't look at us as the building and the construction is the concrete please look at the people that need the training and that will actually have a much longer value chain for you in engagement with our nation because that is the new oil human capital is the new currency and I really would encourage you to look at us that way I want to open up the floor to questions and remember we're hoping for some really tough questions up here the ministers are really excited about this so if we could pass around the microphone anyone don't be shy thank you very much my name is Sultan al-Mansour I'm the minister of economy of the UAE let me just first compliment the Saudi leadership and also the government for what they are doing right now we are very proud actually of what they are doing of course Saudi Arabia is being the largest Arab economy and the UAE is the second largest Arab economy I would like to know how can we coordinate more closely together when it comes to the growth agenda in the economy we already have some council that is to coordinate but under the recent also development Saudi Arabia I think there's a lot more can be done between these two nations you're excellent see I think our reform is targeted really to create new markets to start with we are not competing there is a lot of opportunities to create new markets which we are doing and we are doing with focus at the same time we are working very closely with our brothers in the UAE and other Gulf States to ensure that this is a win for all and particularly in relation to the UAE we have only in the last 12 months started and started actually seeing results from a very enhanced coordination alignment and what can we do together we now have a program for example in custom clearance that did not exist with us ago that we recognize their reputable institutions and recognize ours and then we allow significantly more accessible trade between the two countries and this is just one example of so many others so there is a lot of alignment and coordination making sure that we actually can benefit both from what is happening in this reform and I would say the same is happening with Bahrain and other two easy countries and in terms of AI specifically I just wanted to knock on this point because just in case this doesn't come up there are so many new advances in Saudi Arabia so we're not just talking about infrastructure investments we're not talking about traditional TV but the question of course is will this how will this benefit the society we talk a lot about the negatives of artificial intelligence you obviously want to get jobs for Saudis today young people how's that going to help I think Saudi Arabia for possibly a long period of time have neglected in a meaningful way unfortunately technology so we lost few decades of really investing properly in technology and utilizing it now we are trying to catch up and when we do we do it very quickly so we want it really because the time is not in our favor so we are really investing with focus and technology I'll give you a few examples one is obviously the famous investment with SoftBank so I think this is known and it's and we are targeting investment with SoftBank and really new AIs that are making a difference and have significant potential but not only that we are also connecting Saudi Arabia we are building highways of fiber optics that only in the last quarter we actually connected more houses the last quarter we connected more houses than houses that have been connected in the last five years with fiber optics so there is a lot of drive we are investing billions of subsidizing the telecom companies and actually laying down fiber optics to clinics connecting clinics connecting schools connecting households so there is a lot of that and we are banking as Steve said we are banking in a very young population that are embracing technology hungry for more technology and they are way way more advanced and sophisticated than we are so Mr. Swaha his Excellency the Minister of Technology spoke yesterday on the day before and he gave specific examples of new startups Saudi powered by Saudis and their 20s who are doing fantastic impact on healthcare and other services that are being now running in Saudi Ministry of Health is running new various new technologies as we speak there they started in the north and in the south regions where they connect households to their doctors via smartphones without having to actually travel particularly with Saudi Arabia and the distances so there is a lot that is taking place and technology is in the front of it if I may add I think the demographics Steve has worked about that it's a very young society it's not only that but they're also IT savvy so they love it so that's one through the transformation of our education system basically a lot of design is going on around what do we teach those kids to do what in the future I think that's also probably an area of focus of vision 2030 so the combination of young society and a focus on education to fit for the future is hopefully it's going to not only clear jobs but make Saudi a player in the AI and technology space you have more questions right behind me thank you Katherine Eric Cox from Gulf International Bank thank you for such a thoughtful conversation and some practical examples of the progress being made in Saudi Arabia given that we're here in a global gathering and thinking a bit about the role that Saudi Arabia can play in a global stage has a lot of discussion this week about the sustainable development goals which also run out to 2030 so my question for the panel is to what degree is there an appetite to align vision 2030 with the SDGs thank you I think it fits quite well with them of the 17 just through the quality of life vision realisation program I think we hit about six of them we have been meeting with I was actually in New York at one of the meetings there to see how could we have greater alignment by default if a nation wants to be successful an alignment with the SDGs is critical just by default so it is counterintuitive to go with the opposite when we talk about gender equality what we are actually I'd like everyone to understand we're not doing gender equality or neutrality or any other secondary word you'd like to put to that statement because the West wants it because it will target human rights watch and get them off our backs or amnesty international is going to say great good job you we're doing it because A it's the right thing to do B it is necessary for our nation from an economic point of view but also from the holistic nature of how do you want a family to actually function as a family if you're constantly segregating them it doesn't work that way however you all have to understand in this room behavioural shift does not happen overnight and sometimes economic drivers drive it because you need the money therefore you'd like your daughter to go work that was our reality perhaps five years ago but today the mindset that's necessary is there's value in the woman there is value in her contribution to the community there's value to her voice and the decisions that she helps make actually make for a more balanced economy it makes for a more balanced society there's no man in this room that I think would wake up and say we like imbalance nobody likes it but perhaps you just haven't heard our voices before so today the introduction of the woman may seem like this anomaly or novelty across the world in Saudi but we've been there where we've been though is the silent partner and today I think we are given the opportunity in a platform to be more present and more relevant and I hope you don't think I am the only woman in Saudi that feels this way or is working towards this I actually represent the thousands of women who are actually a lot more competent and qualified than I am all I can hope to do is that I do them justice while I'm here these are women who are already in the Shura Council women who are already in the municipalities women who have PhDs PhDs that took longer and more work than the time I've been alive and it is it is sad for me that those women aren't shown and they're not showcased and I really hope that you'll take the opportunity to realize they exist organizations like MISC have been so proactive in highlighting those women in the sciences in the mathematics and in all of the STEM world we actually have valuable contribution and they've been contributing historically those of you who work with the universities and the medical centers you know us we exist but perhaps in the economic sectors in the defense sectors in the oil industry you haven't seen us because that's who your cohorts are but we are out there when you also talk about sustainable development goals and you talk about poverty we do have poverty in the Middle East but what's your benchmark and your baseline for it it does not mean we don't address it we do but we address it in the context that it exists for us so terminologies differ but the reality is the same and yes we are addressing the sustainable development goals do you think that Saudi Arabia gets a bad rap? I do do you? I do generally in the press I do because there is who's at fault there? 50-50 there is a determination to not allow us to create a new narrative and my question is why? you ask us to change but then when we begin to exhibit change you come to us with cynicism and I don't know how to explain how destructive that is when you wake up every morning and you go into the office and you're motivating people to make a change for their community and we are so thrilled and we're so excited and the article ends up this was fabulous but why but? do you say that to anyone else? is it because we're in the Middle East and there's a history of what you did not feel assimilated to your values? but please understand the values we have are different they're not right or wrong they're different and they should be honored for what they are when we're at fault call us out when we're not I would just say acknowledge it you don't have to agree with it but that but is so detrimental to the women I work with and the women I try to inspire but I will remind you what I remind them we are not working for anyone outside of this nation we're working for this nation for the women of our nation for the men of our nation for the evolution of where we need to be and that's how we will benefit you that's how we will be able to do it that's it do you guys? come on okay I'll question you back Reuters news Dimitra I'm the energy editor Mr. Jadan in question probably to Mr. Jadan very simple question no buts no nothing so there have been reports that the anti-corruption probe has already generated close to 100 billion for Saudi Arabia could you comment please and in that respect because the figure is so close to what the Aramco IPO might generate do you actually need to go for the Aramco IPO? thank you very much if I may just I would comment and Errol Hines says I think the other side the other 50 that she did not cover is also we let go so we created a gap we did not communicate enough and I think this session and other sessions that we are doing and so many others in Saudi Arabia are doing is really to fill that gap so when there is a gap people will fill it no matter what so we need just to make sure that our story is also there in relation to the anti-corruption I think what I said at the beginning is very important part of the reform that we have started is legal and legal enforcement and creating a level playing field everybody is equal before the law and that's what happened and this is not something that happened out of nowhere this is something that have been in preparation for a long period of time and during my time as a chairman of the capital market authority and I left about 13-14 months ago that position I was actually involved in providing information and collecting and analyzing and so what is happening there is covered by the Attorney General in details and I think there will be more even information that is provided at the right time when this is concluded but have we realized funding? Obviously yes and this is something that the Attorney General have said is he said that they are targeting or they are suspecting that these people have embezzled in one way or another or deprived public funding of about 100 billion did we recover 100 billion? I can't comment on that did we recover some of it? Yes and I said previously that we are using some of it and these are by the way very smart people they don't leave cash and their bank accounts so they will find a lot of ways to hide this money and various assets so we are unlikely to recover cash in a significant amount in the short term so it will always be assets that they will settle for inside and outside Saudi Arabia cash wise yes we recovered some cash and part of that cash is going to be used to fund the recent allowances that were announced by the king earlier this month I think we have Mohamed Alshair from Kuwait Alshair group I just want to add to the panel we have plans to invest billions of dollars in projects in lifestyle shopping centers and I have to say the good news that the banks are more interested now to fund than last year so we have over subscription to fund the avenues of Riyadh which is 3.4 billion dollar and in future in eastern province also I want to say to you Princess Rima that we are starting to have girls baristas in Starbucks and this is really a shift and we are very excited and also another piece of information we employ 2000 women they will save money when they drive and this will go into the economy the question to the government are we going to compete with the private sector you can incentivize the private sector may I answer this question it's it's been never the intention to compete with the private sector the government of Saudi Arabia has been all spearheading all the time areas where they want to restore confidence and pull some private sectors and to reassure private sector that investment in such sector is attractive take for example the new new city and the Ritsi and the Al-Giddiya city the government will bring the private sector but it has to be the agent of change and the spearheading leader that will make private sector is comfortable and assured about their investment I'm sorry Professor please just very quickly I think this is a very very critical point and I understand where he's coming from and I've heard it a few times including from people in this room we would not have had Jubail and Yemba better chemical industries if the government did not step in private sector did not start that initiative the government started it and then gave it to the private sector to continue I think what the government is doing is looking at sectors industries specific investments that are either too large for the private sector to take risk on or new have not been tapped or existed but the private sector decided not to for example recycling we've been talking about recycling for 40 years 40 years everybody's talking about it and no real investment so the government had to step in and invest we are investing in military industries but what the government is doing actually the government is creating the ecosystem the government is saying we are building the infrastructure building the regulatory framework and inviting the private sector to come in BIF BIF is investing 80 billion only 80 billion only in this year in Saudi Arabia who is going to execute this 80 billion investment the private sector the private sector will build the private sector will supply the private sector will partner with so definitely the intention is not to bar and not to compete with but there will always be times when the private sector feels pressured because there is an opportunity that they did not invest in and for Mr. Alshaya I think he is actually an example he is going to open his first cinema actually before the government the government is investing and cinema theaters because they believe that potentially the market for this is going to be very difficult for the private sector to begin with and they want to set example but I think most likely he will start before they are or others will start in the private sector before the government starts so definitely no I don't know Bussalman if you want in less than one minute if you look at our vision realization program his Excellency is leading an initiative called Local Champions this is taking 100 Saudi companies regionally and potentially globally so that's the government supporting those companies in many ways regularly and supporting financially etc etc privatization it's all about PPP public partnership with the private sector and there are 128 opportunities the government want to let go and give to the private sector to manage and be more efficient and the recent stimulus package that was announced through the budget of 72 billion real basically to stimulate the private sector so to answer is Mr. Mohammad Shia a question I think the government intention by 2030 is to have an economy led by the private sector and just before we wrap it up and some incredible insights from everyone here today but a question I think that should be answered and just so you can set the record straight in terms of what happened at the Ritz-Carlton a lot of people still worried about investing in Saudi Arabia just wondering what happened even though there was significant support for the corruption crackdown from inside the kingdom set the record straight there should people be worried about what happens to them when they come and invest in Saudi Arabia absolutely not the answer is absolutely not I think what we are doing we are basically creating a level playing field we are actually encouraging investors to come telling them that it will be your quality and your price and nothing else that will determine whether you are successful or otherwise I think the message is very clear to our own private sector that what we touched out of the Saudi economy is very small if we were targeting the private sector or investors the outreach would have been a lot larger so this is very targeted very specific to send the right message that we are not going to tolerate this we have zero tolerance to corruption and that's what we are going to do in the future two points one the number of people who were in this event at the Ritz were very very small to the number of companies operating in Saudi Arabia so the majority as His Majesty the King said in the Shura Council a month ago is the decent good private sector companies and individuals this is one two I think we made sure through the process that the private sector continues to operate and we've made that crystal clear and I think we have succeeded in doing so so that's another evidence that the intention of the government to make sure that the continuity and the sustainability of private sector is there Your Excellency Your Highness Steve thank you all so much for joining us we're going to have to wrap it up Thank you