Sameer Hashmi
speaker
100 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2026
last heard 5 Jul
Sameer Hashmi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
When Vision 2030 was announced nearly a decade ago, oil accounted for nearly half of the economy.
Since then, the kingdom has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into new sectors, from entertainment and tourism to sports and mining, as well as some of the world's most ambitious infrastructure projects.
Concerts, cinemas and global sporting events, once unthinkable, are now routine.
Women, who once faced tight social and economic restrictions, are now driving, working and visible across public life.
Saudi female labor force participation has more than doubled over the past decade, but only around a third of working-age women are currently active in the labor market.
The non-oil economy has expanded sharply, but oil remains the backbone of the economy and the main source of funding for Vision 2030 itself.
And despite progress on several fronts, the government has faced major challenges, including delays and scaling back of NEOM,
the trillion-dollar futuristic region in the desert that once sat at the heart of the diversification drive.
So how should Vision 2030 be judged so far?
Ali Shahabi is a Saudi analyst and a commentator and a member of NEOM's advisory board.
As you said, the kingdom has placed a lot of chips on many sectors.
Ten years down the line, which ones do you think have worked and which ones haven't?
And where do you think Saudi Arabia will now focus more on?
Now, GIGA projects were really, you could say, at the heart of the diversification economic program, right?
Specifically on NEOM, and you've been on the advisory board of NEOM, so you have an inside view.
NEOM was really at the heart of the GIGA projects, as you said, the image of this diversification program.
But there is a recalibration happening.
Some of the projects within NEOM have been scaled back.
What have been the lessons learned?
Where do you think things didn't go the way it was anticipated when NEOM was envisaged?
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