Megaprojects in the desert sap Saudi Arabia's cash

Saudi's sovereign-wealth fund last month said its cash levels as of September had fallen by nearly 3/4th

- Eliot Brown

Saudi Arabia has been a conveyor belt of flashy spending plans over the past year: a $48 billion property development anchored by a quarter-mile-tall cube; a global airline to rival aviation giants; a merger with the PGA Tour; a $100 billion investment in chips and electronics.

It is all getting rather expensive.

The country's sovereign wealth fund, which is tasked with these initiatives, last month said its cash levels as of September had fallen by roughly three-quarters to about $15 billion, the lowest since December 2020, when the fund began reporting the data.

To keep the spending taps open, the kingdom has turned to a tool it has shunned in recent decades: borrowing. It also plans another gargantuan sale of stock in the country's crown jewel, oil behemoth Saudi Aramco, according to people familiar with the sale.

The super-size spending and borrowing underscore Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's expansive ambitions for the country and show how they could face fiscal strains in a world of elevated interest rates and moderate oil prices.

The kingdom is now halfway through an economic development plan called Vision 2030, which aims to turn Saudi Arabia into an economically diverse powerhouse. Prince Mohammed has described his vision to remake the Middle East into "the new Europe."

The country last spring ordered $35 billion of jets from Boeing, half for the new airline. The sovereign wealth fund has shaken the economics of professional golf and soccer through a proposed merger of its LIV Golf and PGA and weighty offers to poach Premier League soccer players for the local Saudi league.

There are also new commitments, including a plan to spend $38 billion developing an esports and videogame sector and to create a homegrown electric-car manufacturing industry.