Economy

Alternative asset activity in Saudi Arabia is taking place across an increasingly diverse range of investment instruments. The Kingdom is a regional leader in mutual fund activity, with the deepest and most varied investment pool in the GCC. The size of the Kingdom’s fund market means that its key participants are some of the largest and most influential in the wider MENA financial sector....

As the world’s largest military spender per capita, Saudi Arabia is committed to maintaining the balance of power in the Middle East. It is also examining ways to balance its books by ensuring that a growing percentage of spending is on hardware locally produced within the Kingdom. Vision 2030 aims to localise spending on military equipment from its 2017 level of 2% to more than 50% by 2030....

Firming oil prices have brought about an improvement in Saudi Arabia’s trade balance in 2018. The government’s longer-term ambition, however, is to protect itself from the uncertainty of the energy market by diversifying the export base away from hydrocarbons. The Kingdom’s newly formulated economic strategy also aims to boost foreign investment, thereby reducing the economy’s dependence on...

A welcome improvement was seen in the Kingdom’s economic fortunes in 2018, with GDP growth of 1.2% in the first quarter marking the first expansion of the national economy after five consecutive quarters of contraction. Overall, the economy grew by 2.2% for the year, compared to a contraction of 0.7% in 2017. Firming oil prices have enabled the government to produce two record-breaking budgets...

Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Middle East and the 13th-largest nation in the world, with an area of approximately 2.15m sq km, covering 80% of the Arabian Peninsula. Home to an estimated 15% of the world’s proven oil reserves and the single-largest economy in MENA, Saudi Arabia is a key player both regionally and globally. Established in September 1932, in recent years the Kingdom...