Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia
Riyadh … News Time
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who is currently making big decisions now it has also announced the sale of shares of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil company ARAMCO. Although it was reported earlier, it has been officially announced that ARAMCO will make its entry in Riyadh’s market share or stock exchange listing. After that, when the shares are sold, it is likely that the company can emerge as the largest company in terms of shares. It is to be noted that (ARAMCO) is a Saudi Arabia state-owned oil company with a large number of investors, however, it is estimated that one or two percent of the shares will be sold at the current ratio of the company’s current value. International financial institutions and independent estimators estimate that ARAMCO is currently worth around 300 billion British pounds. The Saudi Crown Prince’s economic initiatives have come after the announcement that social changes are also being introduced in Saudi Arabia. For example, in the first week of October 2019, it was announced that unmarried foreign couples would now be able to book a hotel in Saudi Arabia.
The apparent purpose of this step is to promote tourism, but it shows the changing trends in Saudi Arabia. And want to give the world the impression that even after the murder of Saudi American journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, Saudi Arabia is a state that is on the path to change. Another important change that is good news for Saudi women is that they will now be able to travel abroad without any sponsorship. Earlier, no Saudi woman was allowed to travel abroad alone. These steps are seen as a link to the effort in which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is convincing the world. Saudi Arabia is not a hardline country and human rights are not being violated here.
Now, Saudi social changes are also taking place economically, although ARAMCO is not currently being offered for sale abroad and the project is currently limited to the Saudi stock market. Social changes have been relatively easy, but economic changes will not be so easy because the risks associated with investing in ARAMCO are huge, but the political and defense situation has a direct impact on ARAMCO and then investors are more satisfied if the company is privately owned, while ARAMCO is a part of the Saudi state and whenever a crisis occurs at the state level, Aramco will be affected. Then it is also under state control over oil production and cannot make independent decisions on its own, as Saudi Arabia also oversees OPEC, the international organization of oil producing countries. Also related are the security risks, which became apparent after the September attacks, when major ARAMCO oil installations were targeted. Now the changes in Aramco depend heavily on its head, Amin Hassan al-Nasser. He is a professional engineer and President of Aramco since 2015. Previously, he worked with ARAMCO for 25 years in various fields. They have made huge strides to ARAMCO over the past 30 years, especially with modern economic arrangements and financial improvement that the company is now counting as a sophisticated company, which is benefiting the entire Saudi economy.
Remember that ARAMCO was established in 1933, when a search agreement was signed with Standard Oil Company in Saudi Arabia and California. After the oil crisis of 1973, Saudi Arabia bought the entire company by 1980 and American ownership was gone, now, almost 40 years later, the Saudi government is allowing the ownership of ARAMCO. Saudi Arabia currently owns the largest oil reserves after Venezuela and is second only to the United States in terms of production. Since ARAMCO is a not-for-profit company and its profits reached nearly $ 47 billion in the first half of 2019, it is making more than twice the profit of the Apple Company. It should be noted that Apple reported a profit of $ 21 billion in the period. Thanks to these socio-economic changes, Mohammed bin Salman wants to make Saudi Arabia a modern country by 2030. Since the economy does not depend solely on oil, they have tried to create solar power projects. Now that Saudi Arabia (49) has softened visas for countries, it is to be hoped that some ideas will be on Pakistanis as well as new job opportunities.
