Saudi Arabia’s Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan addressed Saudi Arabia’s economy and fiscal situation in 2023 and beyond during his speech at the FII in Riyadh, noting that Saudi Arabia’s non-oil gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow by around 6% this year and said it would continue to see similarly healthy growth in the years ahead.
Non-oil activities surged 6.1% in the second quarter of this year, driven by domestic demand, and vastly outperformed overall growth. The Minister’s comments confirm that the figure for the second quarter this year will be roughly the average of the entire year.
He added it would likely continue to be around that range after 2024 to 2030 and even beyond.
“We are likely to continue to see growth within that range in the foreseeable future, possibly to 2030 and beyond,” he said at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh this week.
Saudi Arabia posted a real GDP growth of 8.7 percent in 2022, the best in the G20. The Kingdom also had a non-oil GDP growth figure of 4.8 percent last year.
The Kingdom expects real GDP in 2023 to grow by only 0.03% this year, compared with a previous forecast for growth of 3.1%.
Saudi Arabia said it would have a budget deficit of 2% of GDP, compared with an earlier projection for a 0.4% surplus.
Al-Jadaan said he was not worried about deficits, and that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign debt remained among the lowest in the G20 group of countries.
“Our aim in the foreseeable future is to accelerate our reforms. We are very aware of our fiscal space and our spending is within that,” Jadaan said.
