Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia’s foreign trade soared to $172 billion last year, the Saudi Minister of Commerce and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the General Authority of Foreign Trade, Dr Majid Al-Qasabi said during the August 24-25 G20 Trade and Investment Ministers’ meeting held in India on 2023.
During a discussion centered on “Trade for Growth and Prosperity, and WTO Reforms,” Dr Al-Qasabi underlined the positive impact of reforms on the Saudi economy, aligned with the nation’s Vision 2030 initiative. He said the volume of non-oil exports witnessed a substantial growth of 40% between 2018 and 2022, resulting in an impressive total of $28.7 billion.
The Saudi Export-Import Bank played a vital role by providing loans amounting to $4.6 billion.
Dr. Al-Qasabi said that the Kingdom is home to 1.2 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which collectively contribute to 80% of the employment opportunities. The e-commerce sector has reported 33% annual growth between 2016 and 2022.
The minister highlighted that Saudi Arabia’ notched second place among G20 countries in terms of digital competitiveness, according to the Digital Riser 2021 report. The country also clinched the sixth spot among 50 emerging markets on the “Agility” index in 2022. The kingdom also secured commendable positions in other global rankings, ranking 17th out of 64 countries in the World Competitiveness Yearbook (IMD) report for 2023 and 38th out of 138 in the Logistics Performance Index for 2023.