Riyadh, Saudi economy achieved 8.7% growth in its gross domestic product (GDP), the highest growth rate among the G20 countries in 2022, despite the difficult economic conditions and challenges, experienced by the world, thus exceeding the international organization’s expectations, which were 8.3.% as a maximum, while the current growth rate stands the highest annual rate in the last decade, according to what was issued by the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) today and the GDP report and national accounts indicators for the 4th quarter of 2022.
In the same context, GASTAT announced that GDP reached, at the current prices, more than $1 trillion in 2022, the first time that this has been achieved by the Saudi GDP, supported by various activities that contributed to achieving this figure, as all economic activities have achieved positive growth rates during the year 2022, while the contribution of crude oil and natural gas activities reached 32.7%, followed by government services activities by 14.2%, manufacturing activities except oil refining by 8.6% and wholesale and retail trade activities, restaurants and hotels by 8.2%.
The policies adopted by Saudi Arabia to support the national economy have contributed to diversifying its sources and providing an appropriate environment to achieve GDP growth in all its components during the past year, such as the economic and financial reforms, as well as the vision programs, initiatives, and major projects, in addition to providing more investment opportunities for development funds and the private sector.
The report’s results revealed a positive growth in non-oil activities by 5.4%, in 2022 with the transportation, storage, and communications activities reaching the highest growth rates in non-oil activities by 9.1%, followed by manufacturing activities, except oil refining, by 7.7%.
During the 4th quarter of 2022, the report revealed that real GDP increased by 5.5% compared to the same period of the previous year, as non-oil activities increased by 6.2% compared to what it was in the same period of the last year. The report also showed real GDP growth of oil activities during the 4th quarter of 2022, which stood at 6.1% compared to the case during the same period of the previous year 2021, while the seasonally adjusted real GDP increased by 1.3%, during the 4th quarter of 2022, compared to the same period in the 3rd quarter of 2022.
Source: Saudi Press Agency