Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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established in Makkah, followed by construction of another one in Riyadh in the following
year. In 1932 there were 3,000 cars in the country and only 239 kilometers of surfaced
roads as late as 1953. 26 Prior to the establishment of the road network, the journey
between Riyadh and Makkah by an automobile would consume fifteen days on desert
tracks that exhausted cars and trucks as well as petrol. It was not until 1949 that the King
authorized the construction of a tarmac road from Jeddah to Madinah. A railway from the
Arabian Gulf to Riyadh was built between 1947 and 1951.
In the Eastern Province, the oil companies' were engaged in massive industrial plans
transforming the historically pre-industrial region into a center of construction activity. Oil
companies carried out significant improvements in the form of ports, pipelines, and oil
company's residential and industrial complexes. New towns sprouted to house the work
force engaged in the new industry. Towns such as Al-Khobar (the first city in the Kingdom
ever to start from planned origins), while Ath-thoqba, and Dhahran grew from labor camps
and companies' office and residential quarters. Dammam, historically a sleepy fishing
town, witnessed unprecedented growth as a major commercial port. It was shortly to
receive a further boost to its status when the provincial governor of Hufuf moved the seat
of the eastern province government to Dammam. Michael Field noted "It was with these
developments, it is generally agreed, that the modern Eastern Province business centers of
Dammam, Dhahran and Khobar- which was still a collection of barasti [structures built of
makeshift materials] when the first petrol station was opened there in 1946- began their
development as modern cities." 27
During the early decades of the Kingdom (1932-1952) the treasury of the state was
still in its rudimentary phase- the King assumed final and absolute say on its disposal.
Inefficient disposal of oil revenues was widespread, for at that time the country had no
banking or formal education systems and the King's advisors and other fledgling
administration posts were given to Arabs from nearby nations. The King's staff was
limited and lacked expertise of finance. In 1946, the King's receipts from oil revenues did
not exceed $10.4 million. Five years following the end of World War n, the government's
treasury received a whopping sum of $165 million. By the end of his life, Abdul-Aziz was
receiving over $3 million a week. Revenues from oil continued to grow in leaps and
bounds, so by 1957 they exceeded $300 million and in 1965 the national income surpassed
$650 million, a fabulous figure when compared to the days of poverty (Table 3.1).