The rivalry between the UAE and Saudi Arabia has intensified in some areas, especially in the economic field, which, given the nature of Saudi society, makes it unlikely that Riyadh will be able to win in this area.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency International Group, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is competing in a new field with the UAE, which seems to have already failed, and seeks to destroy the role of the UAE, especially Dubai, as a global financial and trade center and make Riyadh the center of tourism and finance in the region.
Al-Akhbar newspaper wrote in a report: But Riyadh, like its rivals in Dubai, lacks the social and legal space to play such a role.
Muhammad bin Salman, in his attempt to eliminate Dubai’s role in the region, may not be able to do anything, especially since the country is not equipped to provide a favorable global environment, which seems unlikely due to the conservative nature of society.
Today, in Saudi society, we see some social changes imposed by Muhammad bin Salman that “Turki Al-Sheikh”, the Minister of the Saudi Board of Entertainment, seeks to attract Saudi youth by creating entertainment and celebrations and holding various concerts and these celebrations have led to chaos, sexual perversion, and moral decay for young people, just as young people used drugs at a large music festival in Riyadh called Middle Twenty.
It is true that all Gulf societies are conservative, but the difference between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is that the first two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s population is made up of Saudis themselves, who force immigrants to adapt to Saudi social customs, and even many of their beliefs go back to pre-Islamic times. The recent campaign to stop the Riyadh season is a testament to this.
But in the case of the UAE, 90% of its population is immigrants, the majority of whom are non-Muslims, and society is ready to accept the Western way of life, even if the UAE itself is conservative. They learned to separate their lives as the people of the Persian Gulf, who have their own customs, from the citizens of another country who immigrated to the UAE.
Therefore, the Saudi officials should know that changing the culture of the society is facing great obstacles and will take a long time. This is because the UAE has not undergone a process of transformation since the formation of the government (Dubai did not overnight become a luxury real estate market and a free commodity market, especially goods coming from China, South Korea, Japan and other Asian countries). The UAE is still changing its society, the latest of which is the transfer of weekly holidays from Friday and Saturday to Saturday and Sunday. Will the Saudis accept such a move?
But despite all these obstacles, the Saudis seem confident that they will take on the role of the UAE, when in fact it may be nothing more than creating tension between Riyadh and Dubai. Businessmen who work from the headquarters of their regional companies in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, travel to Saudi Arabia for a few days to complete their work, then they return to Dubai, and if bin Salman forces them to stay in Saudi Arabia, they have the option to go to Dubai for their weekly vacation and then return to Saudi Arabia for work.
However, some companies that depend on the Saudi market for their revenues have already moved their headquarters to Riyadh, however, this does not mean that they will start a large-scale migration from Dubai to Saudi Arabia, and at the same time, these companies may maintain their headquarters in Dubai and other Arab places.
The UAE seems to have decided to compete and turning weekends into Saturdays and Sundays is the only step in this direction. The UAE has also eased visa restrictions for investors and residents. The lifting of censorship of foreign films is another move by the country, which appears to be the result of the relocation of multinational corporations from East Asia to the UAE due to “stricter rules elsewhere” – citing Saudi Arabia.
Bin Salman has taken three steps to compete with Dubai: The first is to reduce social restrictions in Saudi Arabia and make it a more attractive place, and this is the most difficult task. The second is to provide legal and commercial incentives such as the abolition of exit visas, facilitate work permits for individuals and their spouses, facilitate the financial support system, and provide tax incentives to transferred companies. Third, the punishment for companies that do not relocate to Riyadh is that they will be barred from obtaining contracts from the Saudi government and its sponsors with contracts worth billions of dollars from 2024.
Read more: What is the scenario after the escalation of insane attacks of Riyadh against Yemen?: https://www.paksahafat.com/en/?p=17632
In its latest effort, Riyadh points to the need to train Saudi cadres, but this contradicts the fact that most of the companies that have been asked to relocate have their headquarters in Dubai. About 44 companies, most of them energy technology or specializing in transportation solutions such as subways and trains, consumer goods, engineering consulting or legal advice, have received permission to establish their regional headquarters in Riyadh, while they are expected to complete the transfer.
List of companies includes: PepsiCo, Price Waterhouse, KGMG, Deloitte, Unilever, Samsung, Siemens, Dimension Data, Tim Hortons, Halliburton, Phillips, Novartis, Johnson Control and Schlumberger.
According to Fahd al-Rasheed, executive director of the Royal Committee for the City of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia wants to use the new potential to gain a share of trade in the region and target companies with annual revenues of $ 1 billion or more. It expects to attract 480 companies of this size by 2030. Saudi Arabia also predicts that the mere relocation of companies, in addition to the projects it will implement, will add $ 18 billion to the Saudi economy and create 30,000 jobs.
But many investors are still wary of Muhammad bin Salman, who arrested princes, officers and businessmen four years ago in an anti-corruption campaign outside the judiciary and out of the public eye.
Despite assurances from Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Faleh that Saudi Arabia wanted to be a safe haven for trade, foreign direct investment fell to $ 1.42 billion in 2017 from $ 7.5 billion in 2016. The year before Muhammad bin Salman came to power (the index returned and increased in 2018, but reached $ 4.2 billion), while foreign direct investment in the UAE reached $ 13.8 billion last year.