According to the General Authority for Statistics, Saudi Arabia’s economy expanded by 3.9% YoY during Q1 of 2023 as per the initial government estimates released on Sunday.
The flash estimates suggested that non-oil activities were the primary driver of growth, expanding by 5.8% YoY in Q1, while oil activities grew by 1.3%. Government services activities also showed growth, expanding by 4.9%. However, the Q1 growth rate was slower than the previous quarter, which saw a YoY GDP growth of 5.5% in Q4 of 2022, according to Reuters.
The report states that there was a 1.3% decrease in seasonally adjusted real GDP in the first quarter of this year, compared to the previous quarter. This was mainly due to a decline of 4.8% in oil activities.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that the Saudi economy will experience a significant slowdown this year, with GDP growth falling to 3.1% from last year’s 8.7%. Additionally, last month Saudi Arabia announced a reduction of 500,000 barrels per day in oil output from May, as part of OPEC+’s decision to cut around 1.16 million bpd of oil production.
