RIYADH — Saudi non-oil exports have reached about SR165.8 billion ($44.2 billion) during the past nine months from the beginning of 2019 until the end of the third quarter, business daily Al-Eqtisadiah reported on Wednesday. The exports dropped by about 5.2 percent (SR9 billion) from the same period last year when they were SR174.8 billion ($46.6 billion). About 16.5 percent of these products were exported to China at the amount of SR27.3 billion with an increase of 15.1 percent when they were SR26.4 percent last year. According to economic analysts, the drop in China's imports of Saudi non-oil products was due to its commercial war with the US. However, the Kingdom's non-oil exports to China have this year gone up by about 3.4 percent. The exports to China reached SR9.2 billion during the third quarter of the year while they were SR8.8 billion during the second quarter and SR9.4 billion during the first quarter which was the highest in the history of non-oil trade between the two countries. The non-oil exports to India rose by about 8.5 percent to reach SR10.6 billion compared to SR9.8 billion during the same period last year The United Arab Emirates occupies second place after China in the number of countries receiving Saudi non-oil products at the value of SR20.5 billion while the EU countries come in the third place with SR18.96 billion. Analysts said non-oil exports to the EU and the UAE declined by five and 8.7 percent respectively. The non-oil products consist of plastics, rubber, petrochemicals and minerals.
