ABSTRACT
During the second conference of the Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry in March 1985, King Fahd, hinting at the flight of capital from the kingdom, invited Saudi businessmen to take advantage of the infrastructure provided by their government and the absence of taxation in Saudi Arabia, to invest in their country’s economy. In a speech to the nation on 10 March King Fahd assured the population that ample funds were available for salaries and for all the planned expenditures of the government and that a new budget would be published within three months. The economic crisis experienced by the kingdom is partly attributed, as mentioned above, by elements in the aristocracy and the middle class, to Fadh’s shortcomings as a ruler, and to the ‘failure’ of his foreign policy. Indeed, as the recession in the kingdom spiralled, the exasperation of the Hijazi-led middle-class elites with ‘the traditional royal system of acquiring and distributing wealth’.
