Oct 09 2010 |
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Economic performance: SAMA annual report released
In late September Mohammed al-Jasser, the governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency ( SAMA , the central bank), presented its 46th annual report to King Abdullah. The full report was made public on September 26th, although provisional statistics had already been issued in August on SAMA 's website, and the government-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) had also quoted a number of figures. The report said that the kingdom's real GDP growth was 0.6% in 2009, compared with 4.2% in 2008, with the oil sector shrinking by 6.7% and the non-oil sector growing by 3.8%, down from 4.3% in 2008. Speaking at a conference in Riyadh in late September, Mr Jasser said that he expected the Saudi economy to grow by 3.5% in 2010.
| Real gross domestic product by sector | ||||
| (% of GDP; 1999 prices) | ||||
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| Oil sector | 32 | 30 | 30 | 28 |
| Non-oil sector | 67 | 69 | 69 | 71 |
| Private sector | 45 | 47 | 47 | 48 |
| Government sector | 22 | 22 | 22 | 23 |
| Import duty | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Source: Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency , annualreport, 2010. | ||||
 Download in spreadsheet format |
The services sector contributed some 37.9% to the kingdom's GDP in 2009, up from 27.9% in 2008, as lower crude oil prices and output reduced the contribution of the primary sector, and overall government spending reached a record high of SR596.4bn (US$159bn). This resulted in a provisional budget deficit of SR87bn in 2009, compared with a record surplus of SR581bn in 2008.
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Annual inflation fell to 5.1% in 2009 from 9.9% in 2008, although prices have inched steadily higher during 2010. The most recent figures from the Central Department of Statistics indicated that the cost of living index rose by 6.1% year on year in August 2010, its seventh consecutive monthly increase. The wholesale price index, which measures the cost of a range of raw materials, foods and manufactured products, actually fell by 3% year on year in 2009, according to SAMA .
SAMA has also provided figures on unemployment, which it said was 10.5% among Saudi nationals in 2009, up from 9.8% in 2008. The data showed that unemployment was just 0.3% among non-Saudis, mainly because foreign nationals without full-time employment are in theory not permitted to be resident in the country.
Total bank credit fell by 1.4% in 2009 to SR737bn. In a breakdown by economic activity, the largest single category of credit was "miscellaneous", at 38.9% of the total ("commerce" was the second-largest, at 23%). Net lending by specialised government institutions increased in 2009, by 13% year on year, although only because lending by the Public Investment Fund, which is part of the Ministry of Economy and Planning, more than doubled from SR6.2bn in 2008 to SR13.4bn in 2009. Lending by other institutions, including the Saudi Credit and Savings Bank, the Agricultural Development Fund and the Real Estate Development Fund, fell in 2009.
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