Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "沙特阿拉伯經濟" in Chinese language version.
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Over the past decade, the government has announced one plan after another to `Saudize` the economy, but to no avail. The foreign workforce grows, and so does unemployment among Saudis. .... The previous plan called for slashing unemployment to 2.8% only to see it rise to 10.5% in 2009, the end of that plan period. Government plans in Saudi are like those in the old Soviet Union, grandiose but unmet. (Also, as in the old Soviet Union, nearly all Saudi official statistics are unreliable, so economists believe the real Saudi unemployment rate is closer to 40%)
[At one department store, Al Haram, of] 150 employees, only 25 ... are Saudi. All the Saudis are either cashiers or managers. The store manager, Ali al Qahtani, a Saudi, insists that even if a Saudi asked to work in sales (and none has ...) he would not permit it. `I would put him at reception or cashier,` he says, `because Saudi society wouldn't accept a Saudi sales person.` Indeed, a Saudi intellectual who lives in the kingdom but travels often to Europe and the United State recounts his embarrassment at being served by a Saudi waiter in a restaurant. `... I didn't know what to do, it was so embarrassing.`
In a country where a gallon of gasoline at roughly 53 cents is cheaper than bottled water and government energy subsidies are roughly $35 billion annually, Saudi energy consumption is rising at what one energy official calls an 'alarming rate.'
... according to a 2003 survey by the Ministry of Social Affairs.)
A second youth video, Monopoly, highlighted the near impossibility of owning a home in Saudi Arabia because a monopoly on landownership by royals and other wealthy Saudi has put the price of land out of reach of a majority of Saudis. It struck a responsive chord in the population.
In or around population centers, much of the open land is owned by various princes or a few wealthy families who are holding it for future development and profit.
every five-year plan since the first one in 1970 has called for diversifying the economy beyond oil, but oil is still supreme
The Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Saudi Aramco) is the state-owned oil company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In a country with vast oil wealth and lavish royalty, an estimated quarter of Saudis live below the poverty line
In a country with vast oil wealth and lavish royalty, an estimated quarter of Saudis live below the poverty line
The Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Saudi Aramco) is the state-owned oil company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
