Higher oil prices this year are helping Saudi Arabia to reduce its budget deficit which soared with the oil price collapse last year. But the Kingdom and its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, need more than oil revenues to continue carrying out the ambitious Vision 2030 plan of diversifying the economy away from oil—a lot more. One of the easier ways to raise billions of U.S. dollars without tapping more and more of the international debt markets is to monetize chunks of the most valuable oil company in the world and the single largest global oil exporter, Saudi Aramco. The Crown Prince’s plans for Vision 2030 and other mega projects such as the NEOM “smart city of the future” need trillions of U.S. dollars in investments. Saudi Arabia is trying to attract foreign investors into its vision for the post-oil era, but many Western firms are […]