Oil is no longer our budget engine, says Saudi minister
DOHA — Minister of Economy Faisal Al -Ibrahim has said the Saudi economy has always been ready for various oil price scenarios. Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in the Qatari capital Doha. Al -Ibrahim added, "The oil is no longer what drives our budgets, but our priorities are the engine." The results of the quick estimates projected by the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) in Saudi Arabia for the first quarter of 2025 showed the real GDP growth by 2.7%, compared to the first quarter of 2024. It also stated that this growth was due to the increase in non-oil activities by 4.2%, and government activities achieved a growth of 3.2%, while oil activities witnessed a decrease of 1.4% on an annual basis. The local product achieved a growth of 0.9% in the first quarter of 2025, compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year 2024, and this came as a result of the increase in government activities by 4.9%, in addition to the growth of non -oil activities at a rate of 1.0%, while oil activities witnessed a decrease by 1.2% on a quarterly basis. GASTAT stated that a comprehensive update made it showed an increase in the estimates of GDP for the year 2023 by 14.1%, an increase of SR566 billion compared to the previously published estimates for the same year, to reach the size of the gross domestic product after the update S 4.5 trillion. Also, a higher relative contribution to the non -oil economy amounted to 53.2%, an increase of 5.7% over the previous results, affected by the high volume of economic activities for small and medium enterprises compared to previous estimates.
Construction activities increased by 61%, as well as wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels by 29.8%, in addition to transportation, storage and communications activities by 6.25%, as well as an increase in the size of a number of other economic activities.
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