Saudi Minister of Commerce and Chairman of the Board of
Directors of the General Authority of Foreign Trade, Dr. Majid Al-Qasabi, said
that the Kingdom's foreign trade in a year amounted to US$172 billion.
He made these remarks at the G20 Trade and Investment
Ministers' meeting, which was held on 24-25 August 2023 in Jaipur, India.
During the session on "Trade for Growth and Prosperity,
and WTO Reforms," he reviewed the impact of reforms on the Saudi economy
in light of the Kingdom's Vision 2030, which offers significant initiatives to
increase the integration of the Saudi economy regionally and globally.
He said that the volume of non-oil exports grew by 40%
between 2018-2022 to US$28.7 billion, while the value of loans provided by the
Saudi Export-Import Bank were reported at US$4.6 billion.
The minister added that the total number of small and medium
enterprises in the Kingdom has reached 1.2 million, providing 80% of the jobs,
and the annual growth of e-commerce reached 33% during 2016-2022.
Dr. Al-Qasabi stressed that the Kingdom made major gains as
a result of the reforms it has undertaken during the past years, reflected in
enhancing its competitiveness, as it ranked second among the G20 countries in
digital competitiveness, as per the Digital Riser 2021 report and ranked sixth
among 50 emerging countries in the "Agility" index for emerging
markets for the year 2022.
The minister also said that the Kingdom ranked 17th among 64
countries in the World Competitiveness Yearbook (IMD) report for 2023 and 38th
out of 138 per the Logistics Performance Index for 2023.
This year's G20 meetings are hosted in India under the theme
"One Earth, One Family, One Future" to build a strong and developed
global economy.
