Economy

Looking to safeguard the county’s security in a tumultuous region, Saudi Arabia’s spending on defence continually ranks among the highest components of the country’s annual budget. While military expenditures as a proportion of the entire budget has fallen in recent years, defence and security spending accounted for 30.8% of the...

As Islam’s holiest city, Makkah has an economy that enjoys extraordinarily high demand from the many millions of Muslim pilgrims who visit it each year. With pilgrim numbers expected to nearly double between 2008 and 2019, the real estate, infrastructure, hospitality and retail sectors are among those most likely to benefit. All...

Restricted by regulatory uncertainty and underdevelopment over the past two decades, the Saudi Arabian real estate market is poised for a breakout in the coming years as long-awaited mortgage law reforms and more than a million new units planned for construction look set to transform the domestic market.

Hoteliers are looking to benefit from the extraordinarily high demand created by Makkah’s continuing flow of pilgrims, who represent 90% of the city’s hotel guests. The demand stems not only from the fact that pilgrim numbers look set to increase, but also from a government drive to improve health and safety standards during the...

For all its economic success, its public works projects, forests of new economic cities rising from the desert and concerted efforts to infuse new resources into all levels of education, Saudi Arabia has yet to turn the corner on the its long-standing dilemma of how to get greater numbers of nationals into the workforce. For the...

Flying in the face of ongoing global economic malaise which has seen many Western economies struggling to regain their composure, Saudi Arabia continues to post strong economic growth on the back of its thriving petroleum sector anchored by a steady political and financial base. Although higher-than-expected oil demand played a...