JAIPUR — 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 growth of the Kingdom's foreign trade in a year amounted to $172 billion.

He made his 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 launched 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, amounting to $28.7 billion, while the value of loans provided by the Saudi Export-Import Bank stood at $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% between 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 and 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. — SG

This year's G20 meetings are hosted in India under thetheme "One Earth, One Family, One Future" to build a strong and developed global economy.