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Saudi Arabia launches index to gauge private sector performance

By Pramod Kumar
Unsplash.com
Saudi manufacturers and other businesses will be monitored to identify trends and opportunities

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Economy and Planning has launched an economic analysis index, MEPX, to monitor performance in the kingdom’s private sector.

The index has been designed to track 10 factors in four categories: consumers, firms, the financial sector and the trade sector. The ministry said it would provide regular, in-depth analysis of private sector business cycles through advanced econometrics techniques.

This analysis will enable the ministry to support the kingdom’s economic policy-making and strategies based on emerging data, market trends and fluctuations.

Faisal Alibrahim, the minister of economy and planning, was quoted as saying by the Saudi Press Agency: “As the kingdom records its fastest economic growth in a decade, increasing access to emerging data is crucial to informing pro-growth policy-making as we look to enhance the private sector’s contribution to 65 percent of Saudi Arabia’s GDP by 2030.”

The World Economic Outlook report, issued by the International Monetary Fund in October, forecasts that Saudi Arabia will be the world’s fastest-growing major economy in 2022, with a growth rate of 7.6 percent.

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