McKinsey Develops Saudi Vision 2030 Economic Blueprint for Crown Prince MBS

McKinsey Global Institute issues a comprehensive report titled ‘Moving Saudi Arabia’s Economy Beyond Oil’ in December 2015, which becomes the foundation for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic transformation plan. The Saudi government hires McKinsey as the lead contractor to develop Vision 2030, with MBS himself stating to The Economist in January 2016: ‘McKinsey participates with us in many studies.’ The ambitious plan projects a budget initially estimated at $4 trillion by McKinsey (later reduced to $2 trillion) intended to double Saudi Arabia’s GDP and diversify the economy away from oil dependency. McKinsey’s Vision 2030 blueprint includes similar policy prescriptions to the MGI report, establishing the consulting firm as the primary architect of MBS’s economic agenda. However, the plan is developed notably without input from ordinary Saudi citizens, and fails to adequately explain how the government will change citizen expectations of state largesse including fuel subsidies, loans, free land, and guaranteed public sector jobs. The McKinsey report also does not account for Saudis’ reluctance to leave higher-paying public-sector work for private employment. This engagement deepens McKinsey’s role as ‘a trusted advisor to Saudi officials since the 1970s’ and positions the firm at the center of MBS’s authoritarian modernization project, helping to provide technocratic legitimacy to an absolute monarchy implementing sweeping changes through repression rather than democratic consent.