The economy of Saudi Arabia - Essay Example

Saudi Arabia is promoting business privatization to facilitate economy diversification and national employment. Attempts at diversification center on energy production, telecommunications, natural gas breakthrough, and petrochemical divisions. In the country’s oil industry and service divisions, around 5.5 million employees are from foreign countries. Saudi government is principally centered on providing work for the big youth populace, which is deficient in education and technological expertise.

Riyadh has maximized expenditures on job training and education, particularly with the opening of the King Abdallah University of Science and Technology, the country’s primary co-educational institution of higher education. To increase business ventures on foreign goods and services, Saudi Arabia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2005. The government started launching "economic cities" throughout the country to encourage economic growth. In 2004-2008, the continuing increase in the world’s oil price earned Saudi Arabia sufficient financial reserves to cope with worldwide financial disaster.

However, in 2009, its economic development was hampered due to strict global credit, declining oil prices, and the large-scale economic crisis. This impediment delayed several economic expansion plans. Saudi establishments sustained the banking division throughout the global crisis by directing asset investments into banks, decreasing rates, and openly confirming Saudi administrations security of bank deposits (“Middle East: Saudi Arabia”). Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest producer and exporter of petroleum.

The oil industry was discovered in the 1930s but was commercially produced after World War II. In 1951, the Arabian-American Oil Company (ARAMCO) was established, granting 50% net earnings to Saudi Arabia. Since the 1960s, petroleum brought huge revenues to the Saudi