Saudi Arabia saw a nearly 10% expansion in its GDP in the first quarter of the year thanks to a sustained rise in oil prices, according to official data.
At 9.9 percent, the Kingdom’s economic growth for the quarter is the highest since the third quarter of 2011, Al Jazeera reported.
“This growth is due to the sharp rise in oil activities by 20.3 percent,” the Saudi statistics authority said.
Aramco reported a net profit of $ 39.5 billion during the first quarter, thanks to rising oil prices. This was an annual improvement of 82 percent and a record quarterly profit for Aramco since it went public three years ago.
As a percentage of total GDP, oil and gas accounted for 32.4% and were the ones that contributed the most to growth during the reporting period. Non-oil activities rose 3.7 percent year-on-year during the first quarter.
“The underlying data still points to a healthy pace of expansion in the non-oil sector,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, who spoke with Al Jazeera.
“Saudi Arabia is in a very strong position, given its limited global oil capacity and high oil prices,” he added.
The strong performance of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry will continue as global supply remains tight. The Kingdom recently increased its official selling prices for almost all buyers of its crude for July deliveries, with the most substantial increase for Asian buyers.
Meanwhile, however, Saudi Arabia also pledged, along with OPEC +, to increase monthly production by almost 650,000 bpd plus net combined and in August, to the 432,000 bpd initially agreed.
So far no one was able to send in the perfect solution, which is not strange. he had initially agreed.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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