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Extracted Text (OCR)
The text of the television interview of the Deputy Crown Prince: Prince Mohammed bin
Salman:
The Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, the Deputy Crown Prince, the Second Deputy of the
Prime Minister, and the Chairman of the Council for Economic Affairs and Development, has held a
television interview on Saudi Arabia's first channel for the most important local and regional issues, and
he stated the followings:
* The national transformation program was designed to improve the performance of government
agencies?
- That’s true, and for this reason there are indicators and targets have entered in 24 government
agencies, the second batch will be launched in the near future or the coming weeks, and there are new
entities, that were not included in the 24 parties in the national transformation program, will be added
to it.
* Now it is been a year since the establishment of 2030 vision, How do your Highness see its impact on
the growth, the unemployment and non-oil income?
- | think that it has achieved so many achievements. If we look at 50 thousand feet, we will find that the
deficit rate is less than all analysts’ anticipation, both at home and abroad for 2015 and 2016. And also
for the budget of 2017 we will find non-oil revenues almost doubled in these years, "the last two years
from nearly 111 billion to nearly 200 billion Saudi riyals. We will also look at the fact that budget control
has become much more accurate than a budget in the last year, which spends more than 25 % to 45 % to
a budget where only less than 10 % is spent. All of which are more than 50,000 feet. In addition to that,
the main economic indexes have been affected by eighties, the nineties, and 2009 fall in oil prices such
as the unemployment index which increased in those sharp declines, while the inflation index rose very
significantly. The investment index also fell very strongly, while in this crisis the oil prices fell very
sharply in an unprecedented manner in the history of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and in a very rapid
pace until it reached 27 dollars in a short period, and continued at this abysmal level for a year and more
than a year. But, thanks to God, thanks to the guidance of his majesty the king, and the work of
government agencies and officials and government employees who were able to maintain a lot of
indexes without being affected negatively. Unemployment was maintained at its level and was not
strongly affected negatively. Inflation was also not strongly affected negativly as the historical cases we
have seen in the past. The investment index was not affected strongly and the growth index continued
to rise on the GDB. It is true that it is below the global average but we have not entered a stage of
contraction in the Saudi economy. Now the effects of these programs that will be launched will start to
appear in late 2017. We will find their very strong impact starting from 2018 and 2019 on all these key
economic indexes.
* Your Highness, Prince, with regard to the issue of unemployment from the beginning of this year and
with the recession that the local market suffered, there was a layoff for people from their jobs, what is
the plan for that?
- As everyone knows, that any reform process and any screening process of the country will be
accompanied by side effects. It is very normal with the oil drop to $ 27 and its continuation for a long
time less than S 40 have a lot of symptoms affecting the state spending. These ten programs are all in
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