Evaluation Of Saudi Arabia's Development Planning: Direction And Implementation Problems

Abstract

Saudi Arabia's development has advanced along three dimensions: economic, social and institutional. In the economic field it meant advances in basic infrastructure and in economic diversification. In the social field, the development plans emphasuzed free education to upgrade skill levels. The institutional dimension has seen the establishment of new agencies to coordinate the expansion of the country's absortive capacity. In spite of the benefits achieved through planned development, key issues remain unresolved: industriial development lacks intersectoral linkages, suffers from acute idle capacity, and tends to use an inappropriate kind of technology; Agricultural output is high cost; the labor market is distorted by politically-oriented government intervention; the markets for inputs and products are artificial depending only on availability of government oil reveneus; there is a growing excess supply of university graduates- relative to the capacity of industry to generate jobs to absorb them productively; the private sector continues to be overshadowed by the dominart role of the public sector in all economic activity; and planners have been unable to move closer to a consumption-production balance in both, the internal and the external sectors of the economy.