The Gulf countries, led by Saudi, are expected to grow their economies in 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts.
This is despite the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, high inflation rates, and the IMF lowering its global growth forecast for 2022 by 0.8 percentage points, especially for major economies such as India, China, and the US.
According to the IMF forecasts, Saudi’s economy will exceed $1 trillion in 2022 for the first time in its history.
This comes following data released by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) that indicated that Saudi’s economy grew during Q1 2022 at the highest quarterly rate since 2011 registering 9.6 percent.
According to Bloomberg, this was mostly due to increased output and rising oil prices.
In addition, non-oil GDP increased by 3.7 percent compared to 4.7 percent in Q4 2021.
Earlier in April, the IMF revised its economic forecast for Saudi, anticipating a 2.8 percent growth, “reflecting higher oil productions in line with the OPEC+ agreement, reinforced by strong-than-anticipated growth in the non-oil sector.”
