World Bank expects Saudi economy to achieve the highest growth rate among the Gulf countries in 2025.. at 4.9%

The World Bank revealed today that it expects the Saudi economy to achieve the highest economic growth rate in the Gulf region in 2025 at 4.9% compared to 1.6% expected growth rate for the current year 2024, a new indicator of the Saudi economy’s ability to absorb the impact of external and regional crises and conflicts and achieve positive growth rates.

According to the World Bank’s expectations in its report issued today on economic developments in the Middle East and North Africa region, the economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries will grow by 4.2% in 2025 and by 1.9% in the current year 2024, and therefore the World Bank’s expectations for the Saudi economy in 2025 came higher than the general average for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

The World Bank’s forecast for Saudi economic growth in 2025 is still higher than the IMF’s forecast of 4.7% last July, despite the World Bank’s reduction of its forecast compared to last June, which was 5.9%, and also higher than the Ministry of Finance’s forecast in its latest report on the preliminary statement of the 2025 budget, which came in at 4.6%.

The data shows the achievement of the second highest growth rate among the countries of the Middle East and North Africa region after Djibouti, which is expected to achieve 5.3% growth in 2025, after excluding Libya, the West Bank and Gaza due to the circumstances that the two countries are going through.

At the level of the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia comes in first with an expected growth rate for 2025 of 4.9%, followed by the United Arab Emirates with an expected growth rate of 4.1%, then Iraq with an expected growth rate of 4%, followed by Bahrain with 3.3%, then Qatar and the Sultanate of Oman with an expected growth rate of 2.7% each, and finally Kuwait with an expected growth rate of 2.5%.

Saudi Arabia outperforms many Arab countries in North Africa, as the report expects Morocco to achieve a 3.9% growth rate in 2025, Algeria 3.8%, Egypt 3.5%, Jordan 2.6%, and Tunisia 2.2%. The Kingdom’s progress in the expected growth rates of the countries of the region during 2025 reflects a new certificate of success for the programs and initiatives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, which were able to move the Saudi economy to a new stage in which the non-oil sector emerges, which has become a main title for the success of the vision and a bulwark against the fluctuations of global oil markets and the crises witnessed by many surrounding areas and affecting supply chains in the region. The World Bank’s forecasts in the report indicate that the region’s overall GDP growth will rise slightly to 2.2% in 2024 from 1.8% in 2023, led by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, where growth is expected to rise from 0.5% in 2023 to 1.9% in 2024. In the rest of the region, growth is expected to slow. The report also expected growth in oil importing countries to slow from 3.2% in 2023 to 2.1% in 2024, and to decline in non-GCC oil exporting countries from 3.2% to 2.7%. The report stressed that events in Gaza and Lebanon and tensions between Israel and Iran continue to make the outlook highly uncertain and uncertain, and the course of the conflict will shape it. Meanwhile, other neighboring countries such as Jordan and Egypt have been affected by declining tourism revenues and public finance revenues.