RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product (GDP) recorded a positive growth of 2.5 percent during the fourth quarter of the year 2020 on a quarterly basis. According to the recent report of the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), the size of the GDP during the period reached SR697.6 billion. The report showed that the private sector contributed 50.5 percent of the GDP, while the contribution of the government sector and the oil sector stood at 25.4 percent and 24.1 percent respectively. During the last quarter of 2020, the oil sector registered a 2.6 percent increase in its growth rate while the increase in the non-oil sector was 2.4 percent, and that coincided with the increase of 3.2 percent in the growth rate of the private sector whereas the growth rate in the government sector stood at 0.6 percent, the GASTAT report showed. The average GDP per capita was SR19.695 in the fourth quarter, an increase of 3.8 percent compared to the previous quarter of the same year. Oil refining activities achieved the highest growth rates of 25.5 percent, with group, social and personal services activities achieving a growth of 6.7 percent; wholesale and retail trade activities, restaurants and hotels 5.7 percent; transport, storage, and communication activities 5.3 percent, while government services activities recorded a decrease of 0.1 percent. At the level of economic activities and their contribution to the GDP, the GASTAT report pointed out that the contribution of government services activities increased to 21.7 percent, while the contribution of crude oil and natural gas activity decreased from 21.3 percent to 19.9 percent. At the same time, the wholesale and retail trade activities contributed 11.2 percent, and the activities of manufacturing industries, excluding refining oil, accounted for 9.8 percent.
