Doing Business in Saudi Arabia

Updated in April 2017

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the Arab world, with 25% of its GDP in the Arabic world. Is the largest trading partner for many countries, and is the only country from the Middle East in the G-20.

An oil-based economy, with a population of Over 30 million people (6 million foreign workers), the World Bank rates the income category to High income. The GDP was $646 billion in 2015, with an expected deficit of 19.5 of GDP due to lower oil revenues but also costs related to military actions in the region.

The public sector dominates the economy, oil is 45% of GDP and 90% of the revenues of the government. Their leaders are encouraging the growth of the private sector in order to diversify the economy and employ more Saudi nationals. As a result, manufacturing sector is growing and accounts less than 10%. Also the service sector is growing. With an effort to make more international business, the government has defined a plan to implement IFRS, mandatory for all companies registered.
Saudi Arabia is the 28th largest importer in the world. China is the main importer ($20.5B), followed by the United States ($15.4B), India ($13B), Germany ($11.5B) and South Korea ($8.29B).
Exports 2015 were 182B, mainly on crude petroleum (55.2%), with an annual decrease rate of  -13%.

Major reasons to do Business in Saudi Arabia are the growing diversification of the economy, major government investment in transport, infrastructure, education, healthcare and energy, common use of English in Business, no taxation on personal income and proximity to other markets around the Gulf. The government is developing policy changes to attract more Foreign Direct Investment.

Relationships with international businesses continue. In order to avoid the 'redundancy' risk of the use of static data about various countries, this portal incorporates various live data feeds from:

• The World Bank
• The observatory of Economic Complexity

The intention is to provide access to live information extracted from the regularly refreshed databases maintained by these organisations.