Saudi Arabia’s Sports Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal said that the kingdom would be interested to hold a future World Cup as the nation continues efforts to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons.
“Why not? Who wouldn’t want to host the World Cup? We host a lot of events in the region,” Prince Abdul Aziz said in an interview with BBC.
“Any country in the world would love to host the World Cup. It’s an amazing tournament and it’s good for every country to host such an event,” he added.
Saudi Arabia is seeing its fastest economic growth in a decade thanks to elevated oil prices, recording a $15 billion budget surplus so far this year that is expected to widen to around $80 billion by the end of 2022.
Although Saudi Arabia will remain focused on oil, gas and petrochemicals production and export, the kingdom has already set in motion an ambitious plan to make the kingdom less reliant on energy production, as industry analysts predict that oil booms could become shorter and less pronounced as the world shifts to clean energy sources.
Saudi Arabia plans to utilise its 2022 oil windfall to propel the Kingdom’s diversification away from fossil fuels.
This comes as the government is aiming to further boost the non-oil economy in the Kingdom by 2023 without having to increase fiscal expenditures, Bloomberg reported, citing Minister of Economy and Planning, Faisal Al-Ibrahim.
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) announced a set of “national aspirations and priorities” for research, development and innovation (RDI) over the coming two decades.
The plan covers areas such as health, a sustainable environment, energy and industrial leadership, and ‘economies of the future’. The aim, MBS said, is to help make the kingdom globally competitive in the years ahead and to strengthen its position as the largest economy in the region.