The great oil-soaked jamboree in Riyadh is winding down, folks. The bunting is drooping, the gold-plated fountains have been turned to a trickle, and the last of the Beluga caviar has been scraped from the platter by a glum-faced prince whose personal jet is now, shockingly, on a payment plan. Yes, Saudi Arabia’s spending spree has hit the buffers harder than a cheap rental car in a ditch, as oil revenues falter and the spectre of austerity looms like a particularly un-welcome cousin at a wedding buffet.
For years, the Kingdom has been the world’s most enthusiastic shopper, buying everything from football clubs to giga-projects with the abandon of a trust-fund heir who just discovered the concept of ‘interest rates’. But now the oil tap is dribbling, not gushing. Revenues are down, the budget deficit is a yawning chasm, and the architects of Vision 2030 are looking at their PowerPoint slides with the same hollow desperation as a man who accidentally bid on a unicorn on eBay.
The numbers, as they say, are not great. The IMF is tutting, bond yields are rising, and the Ministry of Finance has apparently taken to hiding the biscuit tin. Plans for the Line, that ridiculous 170-kilometre strip of glass and hubris which looks like a fever dream by a sci-fi writer who spent too long in the desert sun, are being quietly re-evaluated. Project funding is being siphoned off, delayed, or simply forgotten in the back of a bureaucratic filing cabinet.
Austerity in Saudi Arabia is a strange beast. It’s not about turning down the air conditioning or serving dates instead of gold-leaf donuts. It’s about the subtle art of making the ultra-rich feel just a little bit less rich. It’s a land where ‘cutbacks’ mean the state-owned airline might no longer offer complementary diamonds to first-class passengers. Where ‘belt-tightening’ means reducing the number of personal servants for minor royals from fifty to forty-nine. The horror, the horror.
But make no mistake, this is real. The Kingdom is a giant enterprise which runs on oil, and oil is a fickle mistress. When prices are high, the cash flows like a monsoon; when they drop, the wells dry up and the mirage starts to fade. The irony is thick enough to drink: the very nation which bankrolled the global petro-state model is now caught in its own trap. They tried to diversify, to build a shiny new future out of sand and hot air, but the foundations are crumbling.
And what about the people? Well, the populace has grown accustomed to the royal teat. Free education, free healthcare, subsidised petrol, and a general expectation that the state will provide everything short of a personal camel. But the teat is drying up. Unemployment is rising among the youth, and the great dream of a post-oil paradise is starting to look like a bus shelter in a sandstorm.
So here we are: the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, once a bottomless pit of cash, is now a carefully rationed resource. The party isn’t over, but the lights are flickering, and the last of the good champagne has been swapped for a house-brand sparkling wine. The Saudis are learning a lesson that every debtor eventually learns: what goes up must come down, especially when it’s built on oil, hubris, and an over-reliance on the kindness of strangers.
As for the rest of us, we watch with the grim fascination of a man observing a car crash in slow motion. The spectacle of the Saudi economy trying to do a U-turn at top speed is both tragic and comedic, like a particularly ambitious game of musical chairs where the music is getting quieter by the day. Let’s just hope nobody gets crushed by the throne.
