RIYADH: Saudi firms are increasingly playing an important role in driving the economy, with the share of local content continuing to rise in various sectors as the Kingdom’s diversification efforts gain momentum, revealed an annual report tracking the Vision 2030 blueprint.
This comes as Saudi Arabia has achieved 59.5 percent of local content in the oil and gas sector as opposed to the targeted baseline of 37 percent in 2022.
Local content refers to the percentage of goods, services, and skills sourced from local suppliers and the workforce within the Kingdom.
The aim of promoting local content is to increase the participation of local businesses and citizens in the industry’s supply chain, which can lead to economic growth, job creation and technology transfer.
According to the report, the Kingdom also surpassed its targets for the share of non-oil exports for non-oil gross domestic product by 6.3 percentage points.
While the target set for the share of non-oil exports in non-oil GDP was 18.7 percent, the Kingdom achieved 25 percent in 2022.
Small and medium enterprises loans as a percentage of bank loans also outscored the baseline target of 2 percent last year by attaining 8 percent.
This helped the Kingdom reduce its unemployment rate to 8 percent among locals against the intended target of 12.3 percent.
Women’s participation was also brought to fruition, with their percentage reaching 34.5 percent compared to the planned 22.8 percent in 2022.
The report further revealed that the percentage of university graduates joining the labor market within six months of graduation touched 32 percent against the targeted 13.3 percent.
The Kingdom also excelled on the UN E-Government Development Index, securing 31st rank last year. Its target for 2022 was 44.
“The future of the Kingdom is blessed and promising. Our country deserves more than what has been achieved. We have capabilities; we will double their role and increase their contribution in making this future,” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is quoted as saying in the report.
King Salman added: “Our history records the greatest and most successful collection of directed purposes to building a modern state whose foundation is the citizen, its pillar is development and its goal is prosperity.”
