Saudi Arabia News: Middle East Growth in Kingdom Stalls - Bloomberg:
Saudi Arabia’s economy all but ground to a halt last year, raising the likelihood that the government will turn on the fiscal taps to deliver faster growth in 2020 in the face of disruptions from the coronavirus and the prospect of lower energy prices.
Held back by curbs on oil output negotiated by OPEC, the economy of the world’s biggest crude exporter expanded just 0.3% in 2019, down from 2.4% a year earlier and short of the government’s forecast of 0.4%.
Offsetting an acceleration in non-oil growth to 3.3%, the oil sector shrank 3.6%, the most since at least 2011, according to data released Sunday by the General Authority for Statistics.
After a period of austerity that followed the collapse of crude prices six years ago, Saudi Arabia was looking to private businesses to help achieve economic growth of 2.3%. Despite signs of a pickup to start 2020, however, the government may now have to rethink its plans to scale back spending as the impact of the virus outbreak ripples from China to Europe and the Americas.
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