The International Monetary Fund raised its estimates for the growth of the Saudi economy by 2.9 percent in 2020, in its World Economic Outlook, instead of 2.6 percent in its previous forecast during January 2021, while maintaining its estimates for 2022 at 4 percent.
The Fund expects the economy of the Middle East and Central Asia to grow by 3.7 percent in 2021 and 3.8 percent in 2022, while the global growth is expected to reach 6 percent in 2021, and then decline to 4.4 percent in 2022.
The Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the IMF, Jihad Azour, attributed the reduction of growth expectations for the Saudi economy for the year 2021 by 0.5% to 2.6% in the previous projections, to the additional reduction in the Kingdom's oil production by one million barrels per day despite that the gradual improvement in the second half of last year was bigger than expected.
Azour explained that Saudi Arabia faced one of the biggest crises in 2020, but the second half witnessed a greater movement of the economy, given that the management of the pandemic was better in the second phase. He also pointed out that the non-oil sector in the Kingdom will continue to improve and there will be additional momentum. Adding that the reduction in the expected growth that occurred due to the oil sector is a natural thing.
Source (Al-Arabiya.net, Edited)
