RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's GDP grew by 6.8 percent in the third quarter of the current year, according to the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT).

The Authority released on Tuesday the flash estimates for the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter (Q3) of 2021.

According to the GASTAT estimates, the real GDP of Saudi Arabia grew by 6.8 percent in Q3/2021, compared to Q3/2020. This positive growth was due to the high increase in oil activities by 9.0 percent as a result of rising world demand for crude oil and the increase of Saudi production in 2021. Non-oil activities increased by 6.2 percent and government activities increased by 2.7 percent year-on-year.

The seasonally adjusted quarterly real GDP grew by 5.8 percent in Q3/2021, compared to the previous quarter (Q2/2021).

The flash estimates of quarterly GDP are calculated on the basis of estimates of quarterly national accounts with a short delay compared to the end of the reference quarter.

At this time, the information relative to the most recent quarter is still partial and therefore subject to a relatively high level of approximation. The flash estimates of quarterly GDP in constant prices are published at approximately 40 days from the end of the reference quarter.

The estimation process is the same as that of quarterly national accounts computed under a full information dataset, but it adopts simplifying assumptions on extrapolations of some (monthly or quarterly) indicators used within the complete procedure. Several indicators are used related to production, expenditure, income, price, foreign trade.

The flash estimates of quarterly GDP only cover the entire national economy and are presented without any sector detail. — SPA