Saudi newspapers highlighted in their editorials on Wednesday a number of issues at local, regional and international arenas. Al-Bilad newspaper said in its editorial that the Cabinet on Tuesday in its regular session, chaired by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, Prime Minister, approved the establishment of "General Authority for Defense Development". The newspaper added that the authority, which enjoys legal entity and financial and administrative independence, is linked to the Prime Minister. The authority defines the objectives of research, development and innovation activities related to the fields of technology and defense systems as well as setting its policies and strategies. The newspaper further added that this approval represents a qualitative step to enhance the qualitative development of the defense system in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's goal of developing the defense is witnessing practical achievements to localize the military industries, their latest technologies and expertise, as this vital sector contributes to further strengthening defense capabilities and the national economy, as well as providing strong investment opportunities for the private sector in the local defense industry in order to localize 50 percent of the Kingdom's spending on military equipment and services and create hundreds of thousands of job opportunities for Saudis, the daily said. Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper said in its editorial that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to economists, is one of the tools and indicators of the success of any economy in the world, and the true measure of an economy's growth. According to the monitoring unit of the reports in Al-Eqtisadiah, the Saudi GDP increased by 1.8% in Q2 of 2021 compared to the same quarter of 2020. This growth is the best in ten quarters, and it is the first after seven quarters of decrease due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Therefore, the Saudi economy has achieved an ideal equation in terms of the GDP growth and coming out from the economic downturn, which resulted from the decline of the entire global economy. According to the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) data, this positive growth resulted mainly from the increase in the non-oil sector by 8.4%, whereas the private sector recorded a positive growth rate of 11.1%, and the government sector by 2.3%. On the other hand, the Oil sector recorded a decline of -6.9% compared to Q2/2020. The monitoring unit said that the growth of the Saudi economy in the second quarter exceeded all previous estimates of 1.5%. Also, this is the best growth since the second quarter of 2011, which indicates the strength of the economic momentum in the private sector that is expected to be the engine of growth in the coming years since the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is facilitating the work, removing obstacles and providing support for the sector. -- SPA
