Vision 2030 recap shows the private sector is set to take the wheel of Saudi Arabia’s economy

With five years left on the clock for its Vision 2030, the Saudi government is increasingly bringing the private sector to the foreground as the primary engine to hit its goals by the end of the decade.

Squint and you’ll see the shift is starting to become visible in the numbers: The private sector’s contribution to GDP crossed the 51% mark in 2025, coming in above the 47% target, according to the latest Vision 2030 annual report (pdf). Its share of total investment has climbed to 76% compared to 60% when the reform program was launched, making it the dominant driver of capital formation in the Kingdom.

The number of international investors operating in Saudi Arabia has also grown tenfold in the past decade, the report shows. The question remains, though: How many of them are in town to invest — and how many just want a couple of coins from the sovereign ?

The rhetoric suggests more doors should open to the Saudi private sector in the coming years. The third phase of Vision 2030 is centered firmly on “[sustaining] momentum and delivery against national priorities,” the report says — and that delivery will be driven largely by the private sector. How? Look for the national privatization strategy to accelerate asset transfers and scale public-private partnerships, it suggests.

The FDI gap

Foreign direct investment — a flagship metric of Vision 2030 — remained below target in 2025. FDI inflows reached USD 35.5 bn (SAR 122.4 bn) last year, equivalent to 2.8% of GDP. That’s below the annual target of 3.4%. The report attributes the shortfall to a combination of global investment conditions and the pace of domestic GDP growth, noting that a more cautious environment for cross-border capital limited inflows relative to overall economic growth.

REMEMBER- The Kingdom introduced a series of reforms to attract FDI over the last year, including rent freezes, opening property ownership to foreigners, capital market liberalization, and a privatization strategy. Authorities are targeting USD 100 bn in annual FDI by 2030.

PIF’s evolving mandate

The Public Investment Fund’s (PIF) mandate is also shifting to bring the private sector into greater focus, the report notes. After serving as the architect and funder of so-called “gigaprojects” in the past five years — from Neom to Diriyah and Qiddiya — PIF now wants to also help the private sector get in on the action “with increased opportunities for investors across PIF’s portfolio.”

The fund’s AUM were essentially flat y-o-y after reaching USD 910 bn in 2024, which the report attributes to normal market movements rather than a strategic pullback, noting that it has diversified its portfolio since 2016. With the AUM growth phase largely complete, the attention for PIF is now turning its attention towards what that capital base can put into motion. PIF contributed around 10% of non-oil GDP in 2025 and supported job creation across its portfolio companies, which have grown to 103.

A deliberate direction: The fund claims to have generated over USD 10 bn in “opportunity value” through its platforms in 2025, qualified more than 300 Saudi companies to work across its portfolio, and integrated over 200 SMEs into active project pipelines. PIF’s local content target reached a preliminary 60% in 2025.

And if the private sector isn’t crowded out of the domestic debt market by state borrowing from domestic banks? Perhaps some of them can take advantage of the opportunity that policymakers think will be made real in the coming four years.