Saudi Arabia Liberalizes Enough to Open First Liquor Store

However, the punishment for actually drinking the liquor is still 40 lashes with the whip.

The store is mainly for western diplomats. The thinking is that the whippings will soften up the diplomats and lead to more productive negotiations with the west.

Saudi Arabia, a country where you can be publicly whipped for drinking alcohol, is opening its first liquor store, report says

 

In fact, it sounded like the reason for the store was that diplomats were smuggling all their liquor into the country (in diplomatic pouches, which do not get inspected upon arrival), and KSA was missing out on the money involved with the sale of the liquor.

 

The kingdom is the largest consumer of whisky per capita in the world. The king imports it by the shipload, and hands it out by the case to relatives and friends, who all understand to keep it quiet.

 

The compounds in Saudi (when I was living in them) only had alcohol if the people within them were creative enough and ambitious enough to make the alcohol. Saudi stores sell grape juice in bottles that happen to be suited to this conversion kit, which can easily be smuggled in. If you want beer, your best option is to find out if there is a German living in the compound and make a deal with him. I never saw or heard of any brand name alcohol brought into the compounds. Getting caught trying to smuggle alcohol into KSA is an automatic cancellation of your visa.

Ex-pat salaries in Saudi apparently peaked in the early 1980's (before my time), when they were about five times the salary of a U.S. equivalent job (for engineers, anyway), dropped to 2X by 2000, and are probably in the 1.4 - 1.5X range now, like you say. They are getting more and more skilled labor from India and other Asian countries, and that is driving the salaries down. There are more Indians than Saudis working in the chemical plants there.