Saudi Arabia's Non-Oil Exports Achieve Historic High Of SAR 515 Billion In 2024

Saudi Arabia's non-oil exports reached SAR515 billion in 2024, marking the highest value in the Kingdom's history. This achievement represents a significant 13% increase compared to the previous year and an impressive growth of over 113% since the launch of Vision 2030. The robust growth spanned all export sectors.

In 2024, petrochemical commodity exports amounted to SAR149 billion, constituting 68% of total commodity exports, and registered a 2% increase in value and weight compared to the previous year. Non-petrochemical commodity exports achieved a remarkable SAR69 billion (32% of total commodity exports), the highest value in recent years.

The Kingdom's re-export sector also delivered a historic performance in 2024, reaching SAR90 billion, a 205% increase compared to 2016, a 42% rise year-on-year, and a 114% increase compared to 2019. This was primarily driven by the re-export of mobile phones, which reached a record value of SAR25 billion, more than doubling their 2023 value.

Services exports also reached an all-time high of SAR207 billion, exhibiting a 14% year-on-year increase and a substantial 220% rise since Vision 2030's announcement. The travel and tourism sector was a key driver, increasing by 270% since 2016. In 2024, Saudi Arabia welcomed approximately 30 million international tourists.

Saudi Export Development Authority CEO Abdulrahman Althukair attributed this historic non-oil export performance to the Kingdom's sustained efforts in economic diversification and enhancing the competitiveness of national products. He highlighted the authority's commitment to facilitating national companies' access to new markets and bolstering their export capabilities through comprehensive programs encompassing training, empowerment, promotion, and advisory services.

The operation of the integrated logistics zone at King Khalid International Airport played a significant role in this remarkable growth by enhancing supply chain efficiency and facilitating re-export operations. Machinery, automated devices, transportation equipment, and parts thereof constituted 84% of total re-exports in 2024.

Tourism Sector Contribution

The travel sector contributed significantly to service exports with travel exports increasing by 150% compared to 2019. This represented about three-quarters of total service exports. Saudi Arabia led the G20 in tourist number growth with a remarkable rate during early months of that year compared to pre-pandemic levels.

In terms of specific products within non-petrochemical commodities: food items like dairy products along with minerals saw record figures for over two hundred Saudi products exported globally including building materials as well as fertilizers whose weight peaked historically rising fivefold since Vision’s inception.

In addition to these achievements across various sectors: aircraft parts experienced notable increases from SAR1.6 billion back then up until surpassing two billion riyals last year alone while transportation accounted for twelve percent overall services showing modest gains annually too!

The Kingdom exported goods re-exports services over one hundred eighty countries where thirty-seven nations recorded import values such as UAE Bahrain Iraq Oman Algeria Spain France Poland Libya Syria among others achieving volumes Indonesia Thailand Morocco Pakistan Nigeria Germany Greece Bulgaria similarly noted records imports volumes too!

With inputs from SPA