Tag Archives : economy


Saudi has world’s third largest financial reserves

Saudi Arabia had the world’s third largest financial reserves after China and Japan at the end of 2012 following a sharp rise in the Gulf kingdom’s assets in 2012 because of higher oil prices and output, according Saudi newspaper.   The country’s cash and gold reserves, controlled by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency ( Sama ), central bank, surged […]


Oman to shift to Friday-Saturday weekend

Oman will shift to a Friday-Saturday weekend to align itself more closely with banking and trade elsewhere in the world, its ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said announced on Saturday. At present Oman, like neighbouring Saudi Arabia, follows a Thursday-Friday weekend. But other wealthy oil-exporting countries in the Gulf take off on Friday and Saturday, and […]


Qatar has region’s best non-oil sector growth

DOHA: Qatar’s high government capital spending on huge multi-year projects will continue to stimulate the country’s non-hydrocarbon sector, said the ratings agency Fitch in its latest “GCC Sovereign Credit Review”. With a projected 7.6 percent, Qatar has been forecast to have the highest growth rate in the real non-oil growth in the region. Qatar is […]


Saudi consumer confidence on the rise

RIYADH – Consumer confidence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is steadily rising, the latest MasterCard Index of Consumer Confidence revealed Wednesday, with a score of 95.2 as compared to 90.9 in the previous edition of the Index released six months ago. Consumers in Saudi Arabia are ‘extremely optimistic’ in their overall consumer confidence score, […]


Saudi Arabia can maintain current spending

Saudi Arabia is able to maintain its current level of government spending in the medium term and beyond, Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf said yesterday. Asked whether strong growth in government spending was sustainable, Al-Assaf told reporters: “We have the … ability to continue this scale of spending. “We have the reserves, as well as we […]


Rising Gulf spending

Saudi Arabia, which recently unveiled an expansionary budget for 2013 with public spending of USD219-billion is stepping on the gas to meet rising infrastructure needs. “Budgeted capital spending is 28% higher than in 2012, though the government has struggled to achieve its capital spending targets in recent years,” said Fitch ratings agency in a note. “Education […]