Saudi GDP hits USD749.84b in 2014

27 Jan 2015

(MENAFN) Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) said that the kingdom’s gross domestic product (GDP) has reached approximately USD749.84 billion in 2014, doubling compared to the GDP of USD327.06 billion in 2005, when King Abdullah, who died on Friday, took reign, Arab News reported

The authority added that the kingdom’s government debt declined by 90.4 percent from USD122.31 billion in 2005 to USD11.69 billion at the end of 2014, adding that the ratio of public debt to GDP also dipped from 37.3 percent in 2005 to 1.6 percent in 2014.

During the same period, foreign investment in the Kingdom increased five times, from USD33.23 billion in 2005 to USD207.40 billion in 2014, while government spending rose from USD92 billion in 2005 to USD292.49 billion last year, up by 217 percent.

The country’s total reserved assets also registered an increase, going from USD154.48 billion in 2005 to about USD731.23 billion at the end of 2014, with an increase of 372 percent, making the country the third richest country in terms of size of the reserve assets after China and Japan, and in resulting in Saudi’s reserves representing about 56 percent of the total reserves of all Eurozone countries together.

Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) said that the current account surplus from government balance of payments rose from USD89.60 billion in 2005 to about USD117 billion in 2014, up by 30 percent, making the Kingdom the third largest global economy in terms of the current account surplus after China and Germany.

The agency added that the number of industrial cities in Saudi Arabia had doubled from 14 industrial cities in 2007, to 34 in 2014, increasing by135 percent, while the number of factories producing and under construction has increased from 1.950 in 2007 to 5.600 in 2014, representing an increase of 178 percent, with investments in these plants exceeding USD119.65 billion.