Saudi Arabian economy - stable, strong and on the upsurge to serve the people

The Saudi Arabian Kingdom's landscape has completely changed over the past fifty years marked by a judicious investment in the development of infrastructure for the cities and the countryside and the training of the human resource to provide the required skilled manpower for maintaining exemplary economic growth.
With an economy on the fast track growth since the 1960, when the first five year development plan was being discussed and worked out, today the Saudi Kingdom has already completed eight five-year development plans and the results achieved have shown that dedication, honesty of purpose and transparency in expenditure can achieve wonders. The Saudi Arabian Kingdom is today experiencing an upsurge in its economy, a huge development of the infrastructure, the human resource as also development of new opportunities that promise to hasten the march of the Saudi Arabian Kingdom towards achieving the goal of a truly Islamic welfare state.
Laying utmost stress on good education, the Saudi Arabian leaders have ensured the emergence of an educated competent, skilled class of Saudis who are bale to handle all important jobs in the economy requiring efficient handling and honest decision making. The result is the transformation of the skyline in all the cities of the Kingdom, the establishment of a road infrastructure that compares with the best in the West and Japan, the establishment of educational institutions with staff highly qualified and providing opportunities to acquire the highest professional degrees including Ph.Ds.
The weaning away of economic growth from oil and the establishment of industries which are growing at a rapid pace in the non-oil sector, Saudi Arabia has already a booking stock market where shares of different companies have a turnover of billions of riyals a day.
The strength of the Saudi Arabian currency has been so ensure that it has remained stable over the past three decades while the Ministry of Finance pays specual attention to genuine outlay on development projects that give good results and boost the national economy while providing more and more jobs to Saudis. The financial sector is well disciplined are yet a free exchange rate in the field of foreign exchange is maintained for the Saudi Riyal at some 3.75 Riyals to the US dollar since the 70s. The development of agricultural resource has been exemplary and Saudi Arabia is self sufficient in wheat and other cereals while it is exporting considerable amount of greens to the adjoining countries as also dates.
It is today the leading oil producer and exporter in the world while contributing a large amount of its revenues for assistance to the less fortunate third world countries and the UN organisations active in the field of healthcare, refugee rehabilitation and relief and food and through the world food programme. Due to its sagacious policies, the Kingdom is bracketed in the category of developed countries playing a major role in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Wide-bodied jet aircraft roaring overhead and providing an almost skytrain connecting the main cities while international standard four to sixlane asphalted roads built to highest international standards connect all the cities in the Kingdom, the very face of Saudi Arabia is undergoing a change for the better.
Gone are the old days of Camel-led caravans carrying travellers and pilgrims to different parts in the Kingdom and so is the old telecommunication equipment which required manual assistance in keeping it working. Today the most sophisticated telephone, telex and internet network along with modern spaceage satellites keep the system working and international dialing has shown practically how much the world has become a global village. High-rise building dot the landscape in every city while huge grain silos in different parts of the country speak out the food self sufficiency achieved by the Saudi Arabian Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia is often misconstrued as a land with oil and sand and too much of sun. Yet the fact is that oasis exist that run in a chair for over 150 miles in he Eastern province, called Al-Hasa, where one can travell with just a pillow and a bottle, the pillow to sleep under the cool shade of palmgrooves and the bottle to drink gushing water from the natural water springs that sprout the area with each spring giving an output of as much as 50,000 gallons of pure water per minute.
From the sandy wastes that one found in the old days, there are now hectares and hecyares of farmland provided with sprinkle irrigation.
The main vehicle of change is the willingness of the Saudi leadership to adopt modern technology and develop resources, both natural and mineral to the optimum level. The result is that today Saudi Arabia leads all other countries in water desalination going beyond 850 million gallons of desalinated per day being supplied to the cities and even rural habitations. Waste-water is also being recycled for use in agriculture and in lawns in city houses.
Blessed with plenty of oil and natural gas, the Saudi nation enjoys low-priced supply of gasoline and other fuels and gas while the oil exports have helped increase annual income to over Riyals seven hundred billion, budget surplus has increased during the past three years so much so that a special reserve fund equal to dollar forty-five billion has also been created.
Simultaneously, Saudi Arabia has promoted international trade in keeping with the World Trade Organisation regulations and rules. It became a member of the WTO last year and has since played a prominent role in that organisation. On its own part the Saudi Arabian Kingdom has been giving substantial aid to the less developed countries of the Islamic world and the third world in the form of grants and loans as also technical assistance. Since the 70s todate Saudi Arabian assistance in the form of loans and grants to different countries had totalled over Dollars ninty billion while it contributes substantially to the funds of the WHO, ILO, UNICEF, FAO as also peace keeping operations by the UN. Saudi Arabia is very active in reaching out to different projects for development of Information Technology and in all its government offices computer technology and internet is used extensively. E-Commerce and E-Government is also expanding at a fast pace. All these developments augur well for the future growth and progress of the Kingdom.