Following a difficult period for the international shipping market, in 2012 the container route from Shanghai to the Gulf through Dubai saw the second-highest rate of freight growth in the entire Asian region. This was part of an emerging trend of the maturation of GCC-Asia trade. A relationship that was once just based on meeting demand for...
The Saudi economy has been on an upward growth trajectory in recent years, expanding by 2.7% in 2013 and 3.6% in 2014. This has been primarily driven by the non-oil sector, which has grown at a rate of at least 5% per year in the decade to 2014. For its part, the oil and gas sector also saw modest improvement in 2014, expanding by 0.8% year-on...
The push amongst GCC states to invest in Africa came about in earnest following the 2007-08 global food price crisis, and in those days targeted agricultural land and strategic commodity production. Agribusiness, sovereign wealth funds and other agri-investment vehicles were the main players at the time. Primarily state-led, the investments at...
The drop in oil prices that began in the second half of 2014 has raised questions about how oil-dependent economies like Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela would cope. However, in the case of Saudi Arabia, large fiscal reserves and low levels of debt have enabled the Kingdom to avert the sort of crisis triggered by oil shocks in the past. The Saudi...
With a balanced budget for 2014, Saudi Arabia plans to spend everything it expects to earn. However, the biggest influence on revenue is the price that the Saudi Arabian Oil Company is able to charge for a barrel of its oil, meaning there is a significant margin for error in fiscal planning. In 2013 the government earned more and spent more than it...
In January 2014 China’s government officials declared that in 2013 its annual trade in goods passed the $4trn mark, knocking the US off the top spot in international trade, and this shift in the axis of commerce is reflected in Saudi Arabia’s own trade relations. However, although the dramatic growth of China and other Asian economies has altered...
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