Saudi economic resilience amid COVID-19 backed by infrastructure, IT: Al-Jadaan

Saudi Arabia’s investments in information technology (IT) and infrastructure greatly contributed towards surviving the challenges arising from the COVID-19 outbreak, Minister of Finance, Mohammed Al-Jadaan, told Al-Sharq TV.

“The restructure reform plans, included in the Vision 2030, substantially mitigated the impact of the pandemic outbreak over the previous months,” Al-Jadaan said.

As for the non-oil sector, the minister indicated that the industrial business activities resumed in Q3 2020, after an economic lockdown that lasted for months. That said, the industrial sector saw a significant increase in the number of workers, compared to the pre-COVID-19 period, he clarified.

The economic diversification is a key pillar of Vision 2030, Al-Jadaan said, adding that it aims at enhancing the Kingdom’s economic resilience while capitalizing on the non-oil business activities to help weather the market turmoil.

“Saudi Arabia has doubled the non-oil revenue over the previous years, as the Kingdom will work over FY2021 boosting revenue collection mechanism as well as means of communication with the private sector entities in a way that serve both parties’ interests,” the minister noted.