RIYADH: The General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) revealed that Saudi Arabia’s non-oil exports have increased by 7.5%, reaching a total of SR 27.52 billion ($ 7.33 billion), showing a remarkable growth when compared with same month of the last year. This growth falls in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 which aims to diversify the economy by reducing dependency on oil. A positive upward trend has been taking place for the non-oil exports from July with 8.13%. There’s been an improvement in the export-to-import ratio as well which came to 42.5% in August 2024, an increase from 38% in August 2023. The 7.5% surge in non-oil exports and a dip in imports of 3.9% are the main drivers of this growth.
Chemical Products dominated non-oil exports covering 25.8% of exports with a 9.3% increase year-on-year, followed by plastics and rubber products at 23.9%, showing a 1% increase. Also, re-exported goods saw a surge of 18.9% year-on-year. Overall, merchandise exports fell by 9.8% as oil exports were down by 15.5% which reduced the share of oil exports in overall exports from 75.1% to 70.3%.
In order to stabilise oil markets, Saudi Arabia imposed a production cut of 500,000 barrels per day from April 2023 and until December 2024. The top destination for Saudi exports was China, followed by South Korea, India and Japan. Merchandise trade surplus in the country dropped by 21% as the imports declined to 3.93% in August. The main entry point for imports is King Abdulaziz Sea Port, which accounted for 28.5% of total shipments worth SR 18.48 billion.
