Non-oil activities drive Saudi economy to record highest growth in two years

Non-oil activities in the Kingdom recorded a growth of 4.6% according to data from the General Authority for Statistics, with real GDP achieving a growth of 4.4% during the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to the same period last year, as the highest growth rate in the last two years, supported by the growth of major economic activities.

Today, the General Authority for Statistics issued rapid estimates of GDP for the fourth quarter of 2024. According to the Authority’s estimates, oil activities achieved a growth of 3.4%, while government activities achieved a growth of 2.2% compared to the same period of the previous year.

The results of the bulletin showed that seasonally adjusted real GDP increased during the fourth quarter of 2024 by 0.3% compared to the third quarter of the same year.

It is noteworthy that the rapid estimates of GDP (quarterly) are an estimation of the real growth rates of GDP that are conducted within a short period after the end of the reference quarter, when the data related to the quarter is still incomplete. It is worth noting that the General Authority for Statistics will issue the actual results of the real GDP for the fourth quarter of 2024 in March 2025. It is noteworthy that Faisal Al-Ibrahim, Minister of Economy and Planning, explained in a previous conference that non-oil activities grew by about 6% in 3 years, stressing the Kingdom’s endeavor to spend to encourage the private sector and diversify the economy, indicating that half of the Saudi economy at the present time is non-oil activities, with the ambition to grow with high quality, i.e. growth that depends on sustainable non-oil activities, and one of the goals of Vision 2030 is to unleash the potential of the citizen and reduce dependence on oil. He explained that the expected growth rate for non-oil activities by the end of 2024 is 3.9%, and for the year 2025 it is estimated at 4.8%, adding that the numbers will be adjusted whenever the estimates improve. For his part, Abdul Mohsen Al-Khalaf, Deputy Minister of Finance, said in a previous statement that the reforms implemented under the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 helped grow non-oil activities to reach 52% of real GDP by the third quarter of 2024, indicating that the momentum of non-oil GDP growth will continue in the medium term.

The International Monetary Fund announced that it had reduced its expectations for Saudi economic growth during the current year 2025 to 3.3% compared to previous expectations (October 2024) at 4.6%, and also reduced its expectations for growth in 2026 to 4.1% compared to 4.4% previously.

The Fund attributed the adjustment of its expectations to the unclear and uncertain picture of global economic growth, with the expectation of continued voluntary cuts in oil production and its expectation of a decline in oil prices, affected by the decline in demand, especially from China. According to the January 2025 World Economic Outlook update issued by the Fund today, titled “Global Growth: Uneven and Uncertain,” the Fund’s forecasts are very close to the World Bank’s forecasts issued yesterday regarding the growth rate of the Saudi economy in 2025, which came at 3.4%, while the Fund’s forecasts for the growth of the Saudi economy in 2026 were lower than those issued by the World Bank, which came at 5.4%.