In Saudi Arabia, the laws of economics can only be avoided just that long and no longer

I wrote before about Indian Investments in Egypt, and about the abayas used in Saudi Arabia being made in India, and now comes a news report that Saudi Arabia is waking up to the fact that it is just a rentier economy, living off the oil and not actually adding any value.

As the author says, "Saudi's are spectators of other's efforts" and I further quote

It is a fact — and most of us know — that the shomakh is made in England or Switzerland, that prayer mats are imported from China, that our coffee pots — dallah — are also made in China and our incense burners (mabkhra) are made somewhere else by hands other than ours. I must stress here that I am certainly not against trade and exchange, but it does seem that when it comes to things that we like to emphasize as part of our culture and lifestyle, we ought to be able to make them ourselves.

This reminds me of something that happened in Egypt. A few months ago there was a report of Chinese-made Egyptian pharaonic souvenirs and how Egyptian workers found them to be a threat to their livelihood. But the competition, which was admittedly tough on the Egyptian workers, meant that they would lose part of their income because the Chinese products were cheaper.

Haven’t we been here before? Once again, it is the mentality that is putting us down, the mentality of being a consumer, a person who is offered the goods on silver platters, a person who relies on his wealth to last him forever, and does not feel the need to budge an inch in order to work for himself. Now our concern should be how to wake up from this state. Or are we awake but just unwilling to act? Don’t we feel that we are gradually being made to face a different economic reality?

The whole unemployment issue from which Saudi Arabia is suffering, is proof that our oil wealth only helped us to a certain extent, but now reality has dawned. Finally we are reaching some kind of realization that perhaps Saudis can accept jobs they once thought were beneath them. Honest labor was shunned because Saudis thought that there were others who could do it. Things have at last begun to change, albeit slowly.

I think this is a good effort and Saudi's are waking up to the fact that the oil will not remain forever. At some point in time, they will have to justify their existence. More importantly, as and how the oil becomes rarer, their ability to chart their own course will be further proscribed. If all that you do is to sit and earn from the oil, then what stops somebody else from kicking you out? And who is going to protest and protect you? Remember that!

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!