Saudi Arabia’s National Centre for Privatisation (NCP) has prepared Delivery Plan 2020 as part of the kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 economic reform programme.

Under the delivery plan, NCP hopes to raise $10bn by privatising state assets by 2020. The planned asset sell-off will include the privatisation of the Ras al-Khair utilities plant, which contains the world’s largest desalination plant. Other assets to be sold off include four flour mills, sports clubs and post services.

The delivery programme also contains a target to privatise the King Faisal Specialist Hospital into a not-for-profit organisation.

In addition to raising SR35-40bn ($9.3-$10.7bn) from selling government assets, the 2020 Delivery Programme sets out commitments for the privatisation programme to contribute SR13-14bn of GDP and create 10,000-12,000 new private sector jobs.

The key commitments under the Delivery Plan 2020 are:

Other reforms referred to as “game-changer” initiatives under the 2020 delivery programme include the corporatisation of ports and the development of the ‘Opportunity Explorer’ structural mechanism, a planned regulatory approach that will explore saleable government assets and identify potential projects to be developed as public-private partnerships (PPPs).

Proposed projects to be developed under the PPP model include a waste recycling plant and a number of healthcare facilities, including radiology and laboratory PPPs.

The Delivery Plan 2020 will form a key pillar of the Saudi Vision 2030 Realisation Programme (VRP) created to provide metrics and strategies to help the kingdom deliver on its ambitious economic reform programme.

The privatisation realisation programme contains three key pillars:

• Establishment of legal and regulatory basis
• Establishing institutional basis to facilitate the existence of entities capable of implementing privatisation in a manner that preserves the interest of government and guarantees fair process for private sector
• Steer privatisation programme initiatives.