The big cutback in spending on some of the flashiest projects – which looks to the outside world like at least a partial admission of failure – is being cast in as positive a light as the Saudi authorities can manage.
“The thinking now is to basically get small wins, small successes here and there, instead of these mega projects,” says Abdullah. “Like, for example, the Red Sea island resort of Sindalah could be one small win that they can promote, which is basically a very traditional style of resort, which can still be presented as part of the vision, instead of the likes of The Line and The Cube. And so they can say, ‘these represent the basis of Neom, and we didn’t have to have the whole thing’.”
This tracks with what the authorities have started saying. The governor of the PIF, Yasir al-Rumayyan, has recently said that under a new five-year plan, the fund would “focus, through its strategy, on improving the efficiency of its spending and disbursements, along with a sustainable evaluation of the performance of its businesses, to achieve a balance and ensure the sustainability of its financial resources”.
For some analysts, this re-focusing is essentially the best option for the Saudi authorities and a way for them to save Vision 2030 itself.
Thamer Shaker, a prominent Saudi businessman and management consultant, frames it differently: “What we are seeing is the natural evolution from an ambition-led phase into an execution-led phase. Every major national transformation reaches a point where prioritisation, sequencing, and resource allocation become more important than the scale of announcements themselves.”
Some of the headline projects – which are less sci-fi in concept – will continue to be developed. That includes the remodelling and revival of the old capital, Diriyah, in Riyadh and the massive state-of-the-art theme park Six Flags Qiddiya City, also near the Saudi capital. The successful development of the ancient site of AlUla in the north, famed for Nabataean monuments that rival Petra, is a template for how such projects can be accomplished.
