RIYADH: Saudi Arabia revised up its GDP in the first quarter to the highest growth rate since 2011 due to the high increase in oil activities.

The Kingdom’s GDP grew by 9.9 percent from a year ago, according to the General Authority for Statistics.

The annual growth of Saudi Arabia’s at constant prices has been revised up to 9.9 percent from the initial estimate of 9.6 percent, according to the authority, also known as GASTAT.

On a quarterly basis, the seasonally adjusted real GDP was also revised upward to 2.6 percent from the initial estimate of 2.2 percent.

In the first quarter of 2022, year-on-year growth in the oil sector stood at 20.3 percent, while that in the non-oil and government sectors rose by 3.7 percent and 2.4 percent respectively, according to GASTAT.

According to a recent publication by the World Bank, oil output – the main driver of the Saudi Arabian economic recovery — is expected to grow to 13 percent in 2022 following the end of the OPEC+ production cuts in December 2022.

Consequently growth will accelerate to 7 percent in 2022, and then readjust to a more conservative rate of 3.8 percent and 3.0 percent in 2023 and 2024 respectively, according to the statement.

Non-oil growth

At the same time, quarter-on-quarter growth in the non-oil sector was revised down by 1.6 percentage points to 0.9 percent from the initial estimate of 2.5 percent, according to GASTAT data.

In addition, the annual growth in the non-oil sector slowed from 5.1 percent and 6.3 percent in the fourth and third quarters of 2021, respectively, thereby marking a negative growth trend for non-oil activities over the past few quarters.

All economic activities recorded positive annual growth rates in the first quarter of 2022 with crude petroleum and natural gas activities achieving the highest growth of 20.7 percent, followed by petroleum refining activities by 17.3 percent.

Wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels activities grew by 6.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022.

In terms of contribution of economic activities to GDP at current prices, the non-oil oil sector came first with 40.4, followed by the oil and government sectors with 38.5 percent and 15.3 percent, respectively, data posted by GASTAT revealed.

Wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels came third contributing to the GDP with 8.4 percent.