Saudi Arabia has spent the past two years making big plans and preparing itself for the major changes the Vision 2030 plan promises. In 2018, the country will start taking action and implementing many of its bold reforms, including putting part of its crown jewel, Saudi Aramco, up for initial public offering, allowing cinemas to operate, and legalizing the right for women to drive. Now, to underpin the core goal of the country's economic reform platform — boosting the private sector's size from 40 percent of gross domestic product to 60 percent by 2030 — Saudi Arabia has announced a number of new plans designed to spur growth in the private sector and to give consumers more spending power.

On Dec. 14, King Salman approved a much-needed four-year stimulus package worth 400 billion Saudi riyals ($107 billion). Over the last couple of years, Saudi Arabia's private sector growth has been dampened by austerity measures put in place because of declining oil prices, and in 2016 the growth of the non-oil private sector was an anemic 0.1 percent. The sector has performed only mildly better in 2017. According to the new plan, 72 billion Saudi riyals will be injected into the economy in 2018. Nearly one-third of that will go into residential housing loans, and the rest will be used in a variety of ways, such as contributing to a special economic fund for projects and small companies, supporting indebted companies, and building telecommunications infrastructure.

In another move designed to support the private sector, the Saudi Shura Council announced Dec. 13 that it had approved a groundbreaking new bankruptcy law, which it hopes to implement by the end of the first quarter of 2018. Currently, Saudi Arabia lacks the crucial regulatory framework needed to guide private companies who are experiencing bankruptcy; sometimes they are saved by the state, but there are few firm guidelines. Any country trying to build a more efficient private sector needs to have regulatory procedures in place allowing companies to go through settlement, liquidation and litigation processes. Essentially, companies need to be able to die in order for Saudi Arabia to have a real private sector-led growth economy, and the implementation of the new bankruptcy law is a step in the right direction.

Earlier in the week, Saudi Arabian officials announced that starting Jan. 1, the country will be reducing subsidies by increasing gasoline prices by 80 percent. Electricity tariffs will increase as well — by as much as 300 percent, depending on how much a customer consumes. To offset the increase in lower subsidies and higher prices, the Citizen Account Program will spring into action Dec 21. The oft-delayed program was originally announced last year and will give direct cash payments to Saudis based on their level of incomes. And while this is technically still a form of social spending, which the Saudis are keen to avoid, it is far more economically efficient than are subsidies.

Riyadh's plans will of course face headwinds. On Jan, 1, Saudi Arabia, along with most other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, will implement a 5 percent value-added tax on most goods. And though the country will likely employ fewer austerity measures than in previous years once it finalizes its 2018 budget, the new tax will play a part in ensuring that spending levels do not reach 2013 highs. Moreover, there are concerns that the massive investments and first-mover opportunities that have been given to the government's Public Investment Fund are crowding out lucrative private-sector opportunities. In a recent example, the fund made a deal with AMC Theaters just hours after Riyadh announced it would allow cinemas in the country, limiting the ability for private business owners to make their own such deals.

All of Saudi Arabia's reform plans will no doubt come with their own sets of hurdles, considering implementation is easier said than done. But Riyadh has so far taken care to tailor its ambitious goals to the demands of the country's consumers, indicating that 2018's many changes have the potential to yield major successes.