Its saudi arabia as the oil giant around code has finally been given the green light to go public with a part of the crown princes plans to overhaul the the economy but come around close i. P. O. Satisfied his ambitions and what if any are the risks this isnt side story. Hello and welcome to the program. Saudi arabias crown jewel in the Worlds LargestOil Producing firm aramco is now set to go public after several delays the initial Public Offering or i. P. O. Will be on the Saudi Stock Exchange how much of the companys for sale and at what price will be determined later part of the crown princes economic plans for the kingdom the floatation aims to raise billions of dollars but estimates of how much it might actually draw vary widely. Say 2 trillion dollars price tag many bankers put it at one and a half trillion dollars and critics of the i. P. O. Say investing in iraq could be risky the company suffered a drone and missile attack in september that temporarily shut down half its production osama bin jeff aides reports. The worlds most anticipated Stock Offering is happening after years of hype and several delays saudi aramco the Worlds LargestOil Producing firm is being listed on the Double Exchange and cheers are expected to be priced in december its no ordinary oil company of the engine driving saudi arabias economy. These truly historic we are happy to announce our attention to this the Saudi Aramco Company at the Saudi Stock Exchange market the i. P. O. Is the centerpiece of crown Prince Mohammed and sell month vision 2030 and the Stock Offering is meant to bring in enough revenue to diversify the kingdoms economy. Plans to list of the worlds leading exchanges had to be scrapped because of transparency requirements but theres still talk of an International Offering after the internal listing in saudi arabia the ambitious crown prince sent out a 2 trillion dollar price tag to put that into context the worlds most valuable company such as microsoft and apple stand it hard for what the prince wanted obama didnt sell man appears to have swallowed a lure valuation instead of for the delaying the i. P. O. Analysts believe probable and Proven Oil Reserves can vary tremendously and for a listing up side of the kingdom would have to prove its reserves for Foreign Investors the biggest concern is about the safety of their investment in attack by yemens who the rebels in september produced the companys Oil Production by half investors a cautious of saudi arabias neighborhood with ice in pockets in the iraqi desert in the north and iran allied hutu rebels in the south a selfinflicted crisis with qatar in the east and brewing tension with iran in the strait of hormuz no one expected. Or any other nonstate actors could be so successful. In disrupting the Oil Production that also had its impact on the. Investors also have to consider the your pick to your Anti Corruption drive which is widely seen as a shakedown of wealthy saudis and also journalist Jamal Khashoggi is gruesome killing which was linked directly to the crown prince of saudi arabia has tried to lure investors from asia to europe and from russia to the United States saudi arabia is reportedly Still Holding government to government meetings to attract investment from softened funds. Industry experts believe much of the investment from the listing will come from the saudi families not Foreign Investors its curious timing for such an i. P. O. With the reek outlook for oil prices a sluggish Global Economy and increased environmental awareness against the use of fossil fuels osama bin job it is there. So crown Prince Mohammed bin salomon and on saudi arabias 2030 Economic Vision more than 3 years ago that plan aims to expand the private sector and diversify the kingdoms economy away from oil this would include investments in Renewable Energy and large scale real estate projects like the planned futuristic city neon which would cost around 500000000000. 00 it also seeks to increase tourism from 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product to 10 percent and boost culture and entertainment as well as decrease unemployment for more than 11 percent to 7 as well as get more women into the workforce. For more on this im joined by our guests here in doha with us as well how much of it hes an author and senior fellow at the Aljazeera Center for studies joining us via skype from beirut joseph also an author and senior fellow at the king faisal a center for research on islamic studies also on skype from rhode island geoff clark colgan hes an associate professor of Brown University and the author of petro aggression when Oil Causes War welcome to you all joseph on ill start with you in beirut so its no secret that the proceeds from the i. P. O. Will be used by the kingdom sovereign Public Investment fund to be reinjected into the saudi economy as part of hamad bin sandmans a vision 2030 so would you say that there is a lot at stake for mohamed bin sideman personally with this i. P. O. Since vision 2030 is really his baby it is that it will also help with wheat deal the kingdom of saudi arabia that it has to address the challenges that it faces and there is no denying the fact that you have a workforce or people who only 4000000 are natives which means that. Over 50 percent of the nation be less than 25 years old economy has to really. A lot more jobs in the future so this i. P. O. Will help really add to the economic engine of the kingdom and it will allow for the country to reinvest some of its resources precisely to create the kind of jobs on which vision 2030 is based if this succeeds it will not only be for comment but selma and the government in general but much more importantly it will be excellent for Saudi Society at large and the rest of the region for that matter i will talk about the economic challenges that the momentum how much our car with the Saudi ArabianEnergy Minister recently said that the saudi listing would be a saudi the session 1st of all and specifically a mahommedan sandmans decision so what does this tell you about the personal stake common someone has in this world there is a huge difference between the announcement and the potential and i think between august 2018 and november 2019 this deal i p or has lost a lot of money a lot of variation no the saudis have to accept about 500000000000 loss between the 2 trillion that was expected a year and a half ago and the 1500000. 00 plus does agree with the gentleman here i mean we may have this potential of investment of the 7 years within the infrastructure but there is no guarantee that this is going to trickle down to all the resound is who are blocking a lot of services and the infrastructure is not really what its supposed to be so i would look at it as a decline in business deal with a politic and momentum for m. B. A. s he needs this hour from now to tell the ward that i am in charge and those that all that have attacked installations back in on september 14th dont affect the process therefore we are now in business and who are involved in not only that. Give him some. Kind of excitement to the market then another 80000000000. 00 to the investors who are willing to come and they are giving them assurances that the main they will get at least the minimum of 4. 4 percent between now and 2024 just colgan at the time of the i. P. O. The idea of the i. P. O. Was floated or announced and 2016 you said that saudi arabia is interested in selling shares to raise revenue while prices are low and that the country is running a huge fiscal deficit and thats one way to plug that hole does that argument still stand today. Well i think the striking thing that were seeing here with the worlds most Profitable Company is that so few International Investors are interested in buying it so that that creates a problem for plugging that that deficit and raising the revenues that crown Prince Mohammed had hoped to do so and i think that the previous comment is exactly right that were seeing a lower valuation in part because of the kind of political circumstances around the attack i may have back at the syllabi of course. The questions around the rule of law but theres also some real questions here about Climate Change and norways Sovereign Wealth Fund the largest one in the world has said no were not interested in buying and he shares a rum go and in part thats because investors around the world are thinking you know long term we have to be worried about stranded assets in fossil fuels and thats a real concern for for not just norway better other investors around the world and joseph. On that point that jeff was just raising the concerns regarding fossil fuel not only that the kingdom itself has said that it wants to sort of move away from its dependence on oil and that in fact is part of the vision 23. 00 plan 2030 plan excuse me so is there a contradiction here to be made that theyre launching this i. P. O. Yet at the same time that investment and hydrocarbon at the same time it wants to move away from oil dependency. No there is no contradiction obviously you can see whether the glass is half full or half empty one can make any decision that there want this i. P. O. Will raise it made you know if money wraps 50000000000 dollars and trust me there will be a lot more buyers than those who are standing by right now like the norwegian and there was was saying this is not going to work there are serious time to change issues no denying about the fact that the force of fuels at the pollution in which we live and im sure has been accused since 1965 of producing about 5 percent of all the pollution on the planet which means that everybody else has for years 95 percent nobody talks about the 95 percent so lets cut the chase here there is a fundamental issue boy it is a commodity that is very much in need and not just saudi arabia but all of the gulf countries are in it thick and thin including iran incidentally so therefore one should stop throwing stones at the glass because once one is inside because its lets find out whether were not going to it will yeah go ahead please go ahead. Im sorry could you repeat the question go ahead that no go ahead. You know what i was going to say the i. P. O. Is intended for specific purposes it is to raise funds and only approximately 5 percent of an amp or shares will be put on the stock market which means that there will be a lot more reserves and lets not forget that saudi arabia sits on 230000000000 barrels of the problem now there will be a day when jordan will no longer be used around the world and when fossil fuels will no longer be used but were not there yet and it is in evolution to be believed that this one company that the strike to address internal problems cant just be dismissed as being if theyre there because initial evaluation of 2 trillion is down to 1. 5 trillion now i think these are semantics at the end of the day finances is all about trust and well see whether or not the International Investors and local and regional investors will perceive that im cool to be a worthwhile. A company to purchase let me remind you that not only saudis and residents in saudi arabia dont actually purchase stocks but every single g. C. C. Citizen will be allowed to purchase and im course stock thats not too shabby as far as im concerned mohamed sort of joseph was correctly saying that the role of this i. P. O. Is to invest money and its into the Sovereign Wealth Fund as we understand that to be what do you what do you think the role of the Sovereign Wealth Fund is in the country what 1st let me say the International Investment is about perception or is about confidence in whatever. You are trying to said to the world so its not only about trust so now with the more these International Investors are asking questions the more flexibility the sound is showing in terms of putting a lot of good on the cake i suppose. And for michael so let me go back to you to a question there is that has been a major problems from the owner of the vision 23 it is a huge vision has a lot of potential there however saudis and other people in you know who are interested in this part of the world still asking questions what are the specifics what is the real strategy of such a plan to be implemented so in other words we have the big title but we dont have the details that are helping these investors or we dont have some of the details when when when we talk about unemployment for example one of the plans from i listen to i said are about how if you go there right from reading 450000 nongovernmental jobs and reducing unemployment in fact by by next year is the target here but if it is the pens only own cash on the generator i think this is good beats the point. In the last 2 years we have seen some news coming to the south with the budget some of the will to businessmen and so they were put in rows killed in this cult and then there was more than 100000000000. 00 oliveri but the question is with all these money do we have an idea where this. Shift in the money from one side to the other what im saying trying to say is yes announcements are made but its not enough and i think this plan 2030 has not been sold well to the International Market including the im cool 5 percent jeff colgan as i was just saying one of the aims are for the Sovereign Wealth Fund in saudi arabia is to invest money in sector is that will van in turn create jobs for saudi nationals specifically yet the economy still has to start wasnt seeing really payoff from this plan unemployment is quite high in saudi arabia at 12. 7 percent so is it still too early to see the fruits of this vision 2030 or is the crown prince simply not on track with this. Well to me to be fair to the crown prince the struggle to diversify an economy thats traditionally been linked heavily toil towards a broader mixed economy this is something that many countries around the world have tried and really struggled with this is something that is very hard to do and to some extent i would say he is correct to think long term about the transition that his country needs to go through but the fact is that the numbers are bearing out yet and the kind of change that needs to happen in saudi arabia i think is not only economic but probably also to a certain degree cultural in the sense of creating a higher work ethic and thats that takes time thats something that doesnt develop overnight and that the challenges that he faces are certainly broader than their remco i. P. O. Itself but as one of the centerpiece of the strategy right now is its not producing the kind of a fact and confidence building that he no doubt would have liked to see and in part thats because of his own mistakes his own missteps around producing the kind of confidence that investors both domestic and International Look for in terms of rule of law and predictability in a Business Plan and also to c. N. N. Lets pick up on that point and in fact you raised this at the beginning of the program the issue of the challenges facing the country so the timing of this announcement really is quite interesting a lot of people say just in september as you know we saw that a real attack on iran po facility so to what extent does Political Risk still to what extent is Political Risk there excuse me and will that then effect Investor Sentiment domestically and internationally. No it will not on the contrary i think that the wrists are there of course like in any other business of empty attacks that occurred when the iranians attacked the facilities through their. Friends and allies if you will like within a matter of one month the repairs were made and the production is now back to what it was the saudis lost 25000000. 00 in the process because all that oil went in smoke but as somebody who works in saudi arabia it was who travels there all the time i am much more optimistic than most other people i see the dynamic changes that have taken place the challenges are there so good it does need to create a lot of jobs the work ethic is changing for i mean i can see it ive been going to get it since 9083 on a regular basis and i spent half of my life there and i see a lot of changes going on and but that doesnt mean that everything has been fixed it doesnt mean that you need to state the housing issues have been resolved that doesnt mean that the demographic situation has a has improved but there are positive signs during the 1st quarter of 2019 of this year the saudi government has the budget has a 10000000000. 00 profit i mean surplus as opposed to a year ago so therefore there are lots of changes vision 2030 is very ambitious and it will take a generation for it to be put in place in this city to assume that it will be done in 2 years or 3 years or 4 years one has to be very patient and all of us is on dictatorship of saudi arabia up to a school and to responsibilities and help create wealth i peel off will i