KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait’s National Assembly approved the country’s most ambitious economic reform package in six decades in a historic vote, committing over $200 billion to a sweeping diversification agenda that will reshape the Gulf state’s economy over the next 15 years.
The package, approved with an unusually broad cross-partisan majority, includes partial privatisation of state enterprises, deep cuts to energy subsidies, a new foreign investment framework granting 100% foreign ownership across most sectors, and the creation of a $50 billion Kuwait Innovation Fund targeting technology and advanced manufacturing.
“This is Kuwait’s declaration of economic independence from oil,” said one senior economist who advised the reform committee. “For the first time, we have a credible, funded, politically-backed plan to build a post-hydrocarbon economy.”
