Saudi Plan to Wean Off Oil Sees Success Even as Economy Stalls

(Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabia’s economy shrank 0.5% in the third quarter, a contraction that was broadly expected even as the kingdom’s goal of weaning itself off crude began to pay off with solid growth in non-oil sectors.The overall economy was weighed down by shrinkage of 6.4% in the country’s oil sector, according to data released Tuesday by the General Authority for Statistics. Overall growth for 2019 is expected to accelerate to a modest 0.4%, according to the latest government estimates, before climbing to 2.3% next year.Non-oil sectors of the economy grew 4.3% in the third quarter compared to about 2% for the same period of 2018, a sign of Crown Prince’s Mohammed bin Salman’s initiative to diversify the world’s top oil exporter’s economy from crude.Earlier this year, Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said the government plans to gradually reduce spending as private-sector growth picks up and businesses take the lead.To contact the reporter on this story: Abeer Abu Omar in Dubai at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Riad Hamade at [email protected], Michael Gunn, Amy TeibelFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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