The ranking of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, represented by the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), has jumped 25 places in the Statistical Performance Index (SPI) issued by the World Bank. It ranked first in the Gulf and advanced four places in the same index among the G20 countries, coming in at 15th place after being ranked 19th in the 2019 assessment. The World Bank recently announced the results of the assessment of the maturity and performance of statistical systems, which included 186 countries. The assessment focuses on five main dimensions distributed over more than 52 indices, covering data sources, statistical products and services, and infrastructure. The Kingdom achieved 100% in the data use dimension and scored 80.8% in the assessment, a significant increase from the previous score of 63.4% in 2019. It was the highest progress among the G20 countries, with a progress rate of 17.4%. GASTAT President Dr. Fahad Aldossari said that the support received by GASTAT from the wise leadership contributed to achieving strategic transformations in the statistical production and technical infrastructure fields. He added that this had a great impact on enhancing the statistical role played by GASTAT and achieving progress in comparison to many official statistical agencies around the world. It also contributed to building and calculating high-quality indices and statistical data that are lauded by international organizations specialized in the statistical field. This achievement also reflects the confidence of the leadership in GASTAT's national role in providing statistical data, building and measuring national statistical indices that support sustainable development plans, developing the Saudi economy, and improving the quality of life in the Kingdom. —SPA
