Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabia’s economy recorded a quarterly growth rate of 2.5% in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2020, official data showed on Tuesday.
The seasonally adjusted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Saudi Arabia achieved growth in Q4-20 compared with the previous quarter, as a result of the oil sector expanding by 2.6% and the non-oil sector growing by 2.4%, according to estimates by the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat).
Within the Saudi non-oil economy, the private sector activity grew by 3.2%, while the government sector expanded by 0.6%.
The Kingdom’s GDP at current prices amounted to SAR 697.6 billion in Q4-20, with the private sector accounting for 50.5% of the GDP, the government sector with 25.4%, and the oil sector with 24.1%.
Oil refining achieved the highest growth of 25.5%, after contracting by 5.4% on a quarterly basis in Q3-20.
On an annual basis, the Saudi GDP registered a negative growth rate of 3.9% compared to its levels in Q4-19, with the oil and non-oil economies contracting by 8.5% and 0.8%, respectively.
The largest annual contraction was seen in the crude petroleum and natural gas sector, which declined by 9.6%, while agriculture, forestry, and fishing reported the best growth rate of 3.6%, followed by petroleum refining with 2.9%.
Data also showed the growth of Saudi international trade during the fourth quarter of last year by 21.2%, after declining by 7.9% in Q3-20.
GDP per capita reached SAR 19,695 in Q4-20, decreasing by 11.7% on an annual basis while rising by 3.8% on the quarterly level.
