Agency: King Salman refutes the powers of Crown Prince and disrupts his movements

Agency: King Salman refutes the powers of Crown Prince and disrupts his movements
The "reformer" and "savior" are the most images that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has tried to portray since he took office (2017). But the picture is now threatened by King Salman's decisions and is described as "undermining the authority" of the young prince.
The latest of these decisions was reported by the Reuters news agency, regarding the suspension of a five percent stake of Saudi Aramco in the stock market.
According to the Saudi plan, Aramco's listing on the stock exchange was expected to become the cornerstone of the promised economic reform program in the Kingdom, with a target of $ 100 billion, the largest public offering of its kind ever.
Bloomberg said in a report on Tuesday that Aramco's IPO was part of a plan by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to bring about a comprehensive reform of the country's economy, which relies mainly on oil revenues. According to the plan of the Crown Prince to the private sector, competitive and competitive development of non-oil industries, considering that building the economy in the future can no longer rely on the wealth under its sand.
The agency pointed out that Bin Salman's economic moves coincided with social reforms he had undertaken to limit the authority of conservative clerics and to grant Saudi women some of the rights they were demanding, most notably allowing women in the kingdom to drive the car.
But Bloomberg pointed out that Mohammed bin Salman had set off in the wrong direction when he decided to sell shares of Saudi Arabian Oil Company, the world's largest oil company.
The plan was very ambitious: the company had a value of about $ 2 trillion, and was due to be the first large public offering by this year. Now the deal has been indefinitely postponed, giving the crown prince an opportunity to reassess his reform strategy by following more practical measures.
Bloomberg said the crown prince should move quickly. Because the decision to stop the IPO of "Aramco" in the IPO, will give investors a pause, capital flight, a serious problem may already escalate.
For its part, the agency "Reuters" that the decision of King Salman "a blow to the reform program, the vision of the Kingdom 2030," which was put forward by Prince Mohammed and aims to make a fundamental change in the Saudi economy, which is the main engine of the state.
However, a former Saudi official denied that the king's decision would have any effect on the 2030 plan. A member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) advisory board, former Saudi finance ministry undersecretary and economist Abdul Aziz bin Nayef al-Arriyer, said the idea was to provide the Saudi Public Investment Fund Of investment in companies and contributions that generate income on the state budget.
"Now with increased liquidity, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and King Salman bin Abdul Aziz are of the view that there is no need for additional liquidity, and that at least it is enough in the next few years because the objective was to reduce the budget deficit," he told Sputnik. The budget decreased its deficit from 19% to 4%, a large proportion, and is expected in 2019 to be lower.
"There are expectations that the price of a barrel of oil in 2019 to 80 and 90 dollars, and if this happens, the king will not need to put Aramco shares also on the stock exchange, because the offering is not an easy process, the offer of this size and large may not be priced by the market commensurate with the size, Maybe with the oil rising, the value will be high if the offer is made. "
The impact of the decision by King Salman bin Abdul Aziz on the proposed 5% of the shares of Aramco on the stock market, the Vision 2030, put forward by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince to promote the economy of Saudi Arabia, said that this decision will not have a negative impact, but On the contrary, with the rise in the price of oil, the balance of the budget occurred, so that revenues became higher than expenditures.
The Reuters news agency put the decision to stop Aramco as part of a desire by King Salman to "curtail the unilateral powers enjoyed by Prince Mohammed after his father took over the country."
According to Reuters, what happened last year when Prince Mohammed gave the impression that Riyadh had agreed to the administration's vague plan to bring peace to the Middle East, including recognition, American Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. However, the King intervened. At the Arab Summit held in April, King Salman affirmed Riyadh's commitment to the Arab and Islamic identity of Jerusalem.
A source told Reuters that "the king is obsessed with the idea of ​​how history will judge him, will he be the king who sold Aramco and sold Palestine?"
The source confirmed that, despite the king's recent decision as a "blow to Prince Mohammed's program," he will remain the king's son-in-law and has great influence over politics in the kingdom, and the king wanted to show that he will continue to have the final say in the future.
"I am not sure that I will consider this as a weakening of the Crown Prince's authority, but probably a guarantee that he will not be removed," James Dorsey, a fellow researcher at the Rajartnam Center for International Studies in Singapore, was quoted as saying.
Source: Sputnik