Dubai, UAE — Fitch Ratings has recently upgraded its Saudi Arabia’s rating to ‘A+’ with a Stable Outlook.
The agency indicated in its report that this rating upgrade reflects the kingdom’s strong fiscal and external balance sheets with large sovereign net foreign assets compared to ‘AA’ median and debt/GDP half of ‘A’ medians.
The kingdom will continue to progress with fiscal, economic and governance reforms, Fitch said, while pointing to the kingdom’s formidable foreign reserves with one of the highest reserve coverage ratios among Fitch-rated sovereigns.
The agency, according to SPA, also indicated the government’s strategic decision-making is being balanced between supporting Vision 2030 projects and responding to high inflation while remaining fiscally prudent.
It forecasts a 5 percent growth in the non-oil private sector in 2023, to be followed by 4 percent growth during the 2024 to 2025 period.
Saudi Arabia’s GDP grew at 8.7 percent in 2022, which is the highest in the Group of Twenty (G20) nations and higher than projections of several international organizations that had estimated the kingdom’s economy to grow at a maximum of 8.3 percent.
The growth rate is also the highest annual rate in the past decade, according to the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), which said Wednesday that the GDP at current prices reached more than $1 trillion in 2022 for the first time.
GASTAT said all economic activities achieved positive growth rates during 2022, with crude oil and natural gas contributing 32.7 percent, government services activities 14.2 percent, manufacturing activities except oil refining 8.6 percent and wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels 8.2 percent.