The Saudi Finance Minister, Muhammad Al-Jadaan, expected that Saudi Arabia would witness an economic downturn this year, but less severe than the expectations of the International Monetary Fund, pointing out that "what we will witness will be much less than the IMF expects in terms of negative growth in 2020."
"We faced the shock of the oil market and a major decline in our revenues, but we managed that very well throughout the year, and we are likely to witness very good growth towards 2021," Al-Jadaan said, adding that "the local debt markets were able to absorb more government debt issuances without affecting liquidity in the system".
For his part, the Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Dr. Ahmed Al-Khulaifi, re-emphasized the policy of linking the riyal to the dollar, pointing out that "the country's economic prospects this year remain shrouded in uncertainty," stressing his "confidence in the stability of the financial system."
Al-Jadaan explained that "we started 2020 with an optimistic outlook and expected a strong continuation of growth, and Saudi banks were not affected by the pandemic," considering that "the decline in oil production and Corona affected the growth of the economy," adding that the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) continues with the monetary policy that it started with many years ago, since the policy of pegging the riyal to the dollar was one of the basic elements of financial stability in Saudi Arabia.
Source (Al-Arabiya.net, Edited)
