The Saudi Arabian authorities intend to reduce the costs of the oil sector of the economy by USD 40 billion .USD by 2028, focusing on the development of renewable energy and mining, said Ag. Bloomberg citing data from the American Goldman Sachs Group.
According to its information, Riyadh plans to redirect about 73% of investments to sectors of the economy that are not related to oil production by 2030. As a result, only a quarter of the remaining funds allocated by the authorities for the development of strategic industries by the end of the current decade, will be invested in the oil industry. In this way, the kingdom intends to diversify its economy by prioritizing the development of metallurgy, the transport industry and logistics, as well as digitalization. At the same time, according to Goldman Sachs analyst Faisal al-Azmeh, natural gas “will continue to be a key factor in the country's plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and in its economic development.“
In March, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Economy and Planning announced that the size of the country's non-oil sector had reached 50% in 2023, the highest in the kingdom's history. According to the department, in real terms the contribution of the non-oil sector amounted to 1.7 trillion Saudi riyals (about 453.3 billion USD).
Earlier, Saudi Arabia's General Directorate of Statistics reported that the kingdom's GDP, whose economy depends on oil exports, fell by 0.9% at the end of 2023, while a year earlier the growth of this indicator was 8.7%. In the third quarter of last year, GDP decreased by 4.4% compared to the same period a year earlier, in the fourth quarter - by 3.7%. The decline in GDP in the last two quarters is mainly due to the decision to voluntarily reduce oil production.