After my projection since July 2015 for a collapse in 2018, reality is now appearing in media.
Saudis cannot afford to import expats from other countries and need to work on their own in every job from malls to gas stations to banks to hotels to working in gas stations and even flipping burgers!
This is the original news on AFP which will make global headlines today and tomorrow.
1 Aug 2018: AFP: Burger on wheels: Saudis try once 'lowly' jobs as economy bites
Watch this video: the chef is Saudi and has 2 Saudi workers.
Burger on wheels Saudis try once 'lowly' jobs as economy bites
31 Jul 2018: Reuters: Saudi's PIF aims to raise between $6-8 billion in first loan: sources
The largest contractor has significantly reduced in size and the owner is most likely in jail.
Second largest contractor has also collapsed and the owner (President Hariri of Lebanon) was under house arrest in Saudi until the French President intervened.
From grocery stores to mobile shops to banks to car rental companies, almost every widespread job has been localised and expat visas are banned. On top, Yemenis, Ethiopians, Qataris, Libyans etc are also banned in Saudi. Thousands of businesses have shut due to this.
There used to be over 2-3m Yemenis living in Saudi for more than a century. On an average 1m of each nationality like Pakistanis or Ethiopians or Yemenis have been deported over the last few years including people born in Saudi.
Just last week, it was claimed that Houthis attacked 2 Saudi oil tankers although there is no definitive proof.
Maybe Saudi wants to deflect attention internationally away from it's domestic implosion and get involved in the Trump-Iran duel as well get international players like Egypt, Europe and US to also get involved in the Yemen (Iran) fiasco.
Thanks to the purge with arrests of hundreds of top businessmen, royals and elites (estimates go as high as 2,000 arrests) in Nov 2017 by Saudi Crown Prince in the name of corruption, entire Saudi economy has collapsed and even Saudis are not keen to invest in Saudi and wish to repatriate their money abroad but they are being watched.
24 July 2018: FT: Wealthy Saudis sit on cash as purge casts shadow over investment
We have said this since 2015 that anyone and everyone across GCC will want to sell their properties whether in UAE or in Saudi but there will be no one left to buy because all the top people are either banned, been cheated or are under criminal investigations while prices are falling at an astonishing speed.
What used to be a rare and discrete sale and now is a joke and is one of the best quotes from the FT article:
"A Saudi banker said the grim sentiment was affecting the property market, with wealthy families looking to sell palaces. “I must get a call a week from people brokering these palaces, saying: ‘Do you know anybody who would want to buy a palace?’” the banker said."
If you know anyone willing to buy a Saudi palace, do let us know! :)
Furthermore, all subsidies have been removed and electricity prices were hiked by a MASSIVE 300% effective Jan 2018.
Petrol prices have almost doubled since 2017.
Dec 2017: Saudi Arabia set to hike domestic petrol prices by 80% in January
With prices of basic necessities doubling or tripling, missiles flying, war with Yemen bleeding the country and a tough fight with Qatar and Iran, the Govt cannot distribute money fast enough.
Dependent fees have been implemented on expats with families that has also led to a voluntary mass exodus under stressful conditions.
15 July 2018: Saudi Arabia: From tax-free to tax-burdened
Saudi FDI has plunged 88.5% since 2012 and 81.3% drop since 2016.
FDI was USD 12.2b in 2012. USD 7.5b in 2016 and just USD 1.4b in 2017 in a blow to the ambitions of the Crown Prince.
Oman and Jordan received more than Saudi in 2017.
7 Jun 2018: Forbes: Saudi Arabia Suffers Shock Collapse In Inward Investment
Real estate has been plunging since 2015, however, it's gathering even more speed now, after a 2.5% tax on land holdings was finally implemented in 2017.
Due to all the above, mass voluntary exodus as well as forced deportations of expats is going on heavily since 2017.
However, worse is yet to come....
What is your projection about SA and the Prince?
ReplyDeleteI smell a revolution.
It is extremely hard to predict because he has been crushing a lot of souls. Thousands have been jailed while hundreds of protestors or intellectuals or activists including the girls who were driving are in jail.
ReplyDeleteAbsolute monarchies are very hard to predict. If we see whats been happening in Bahrain, it could go on forever.
That is why the business and economy is collapsing in Saudi over which they don't have any control and they are making terrible decisions just to hang on
People should revolt but it will be met with extremely lethal force and lot of torture.
It also depends on what America wants. Whether America and Trump care or not? So far Trump has supported CP (in lieu of oil price rise) by arresting thousands of princes which was impossible at any other time before.
Revolution not much, I guess, falling apart of everything else and even Saudis will start leaving and the poor will remain behind in hardships like in Syria or Iraq.
Hard to predict how long CP will survive because there have been 2 attempts on his life already, one n Sept in LA and one in April in Saudi. He has made everyone except a few chosen ones as his enemy. So it is impossible to predict whether something happens him tomorrow or in a year or never.
Saudi as a country is in a very bad shape and worse is yet to come.
Whichever way we lean, it is a very very ugly picture for the future of Saudi and the survival of the Saudi monarchy is at stake. And we have not even started to talk about Iran, the arch nemesis, yet.
That is how bad the self destructive situation is, within Saudi!