Saudi economy has proved resilient — but now comes the challenge | Arab News

Saudi economy has proved resilient — but now comes the challenge | Arab News:

As the decision makers in Vienna got down to the nitty gritty on Thursday, the economic policymakers back home were looking through the range of oil price variables to see how the OPEC deliberations will effect their budget calculations for 2019.

Though it is still too early to say where the oil price will settle after Vienna, especially after the recent volatility in global crude prices amid a wave of geopolitical forces pulling it this way and that, the economic background is relatively benign — or at least less unpredictable than it has been for several years.

The risk is that those same mercurial geopolitics can throw off course even the best laid plans, and that Saudi Arabia — the biggest of the regional oil-exporting economies — finds itself contending with more variables than policymakers would ideally like.