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Home - July 2021

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ECONOMIC TRENDS

Industries outside of the oil sector are thriving, as the government’s reform effort gains momentum and attracts investments.


OIL AND GAS

The company’s pipeline assets prove popular among institutional investors, coinciding with a sharp recovery in global oil consumption.

RETAIL

Business conditions appear to have recovered from impacts of the coronavirus, while retail has been buoyed by a shift to online shopping.

PETROCHEMICALS

The company has staged a nimble response to market changes brought about by the pandemic by implementing ‘forward-looking strategies’.


MINING

Once completed, the multi-billion-dollar project will position the company as one of the world’s three largest phosphate fertiliser producers.

LOGISTICS

By investing in infrastructure, the government hopes to boost the country’s air, land and sea connectivity, and increase freight capacity.

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 IN THIS EDITION

In a sign of the government’s successful efforts to support the economy, Saudi Arabia’s unemployment rate fell below pre-pandemic levels.

"In the first quarter of 2021, the overall Saudi unemployment rate decreased to 11.7% compared to 12.6% in the last quarter of 2020, reaching a level below pre-pandemic," the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat) said.

Unemployment rate among Saudi males reached 7.2% in the first quarter of 2021, while the unemployment rate among Saudi females stood at 21.2% during the same period, based on the estimates of GaStat’s Labour Force Survey.

The surge in women employment has been a bright spot in the kingdom’s recovery. The 21.2% unemployment rate among women in the first quarter is the lowest it has ever been, compared to a 31.7% increase in women unemployment in the first quarter of 2019.

The labour force participation rate of women of working age also rose during the first quarter to reach 33.6%, versus 32.1% in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The International Monetary Fund has also lauded the kingdom’s fiscal and monetary measures, which propped the economy and led to a rebound in jobs.

“Policies to support the non-oil economy have been successful,” the IMF said in its latest report on the kingdom. “The contraction in non-oil real GDP in 2020 was less than the G20 median real GDP contraction and less than projected by staff in the June 2020 World Economic Outlook. Further, employment of Saudis in the private sector declined only slightly during the peak of the crisis and has rebounded suggesting that the employment support was successful.”

And the march towards economic reforms continues. In July, authorities said the kingdom will invest more than SAR 500 billion in airports, seaports, rail and other infrastructure by the end of the decade, in a bid to transform the country into a global transportation and logistics hub.

Such initiatives will bring Saudi Arabia closer to achieving a number of Vision 2030 goals, and create thousands of well-paying jobs.
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