Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabian women have celebrated on Sunday, 24 June their right to drive for the first time.
This step is deemed a historic reform expected to lead a new era of social mobility in the GCC nation.
The oil-rich country expected that allowing Saudi women to drive may inject as much as $90 billion in its economic output by 2030, Bloomberg News reported.
“Lifting the ban on driving is likely to increase the number of women seeking jobs, boosting the size of the workforce and lifting overall incomes and output,” Ziad Daoud, Dubai-based chief Middle East economist for Bloomberg Economics, commented.
The outcome of this move could outpace the potential 5% share sale of Saudi Arabian Oil Company, the world's biggest oil exporter, expected to generate around $100 billion, the New York-based news agency noted.
“The participation of women in Saudi Arabia’s labour market is poor. With only 20% of females in Saudi Arabia economically active, the country even lags behind its neighbours in the Gulf, where participation averaged 42% in 2016,” Daoud added.
The decision will result in increasing the female participation in Saudi labour market by 70,000 a year.
