Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman; deputy prime minister and minister of defense, has extolled the speech of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman while opening the work of the eighth session of the Saudi Shoura Council, confirming the kingdom managed to provide huge achievements in a short time.
The Crown Prince stressed that Saudi Arabia is considered as one of the biggest economic countries in the world thanks to the variety in the kingdom's business away from the petroleum field.
"In 2016, the value of non-oil GDP was estimated at 1.8 trillion riyals while in the Kingdom we began laying out plans to double it at a rapid pace," the crown Prince said.
"The result was rapid growth in the past three years, by 1.3% in 2017, 2.2% in 2018, 3 3% in 2019 and more than 4% in the fourth quarter of 2019, despite some economic challenges."
"Despite the pandemic, and relatively with our counterparts in the G20, we are considered one of the 10 best countries in dealing with the economic consequences of the Corona pandemic in the G20,"
"We are more optimistic that the pace of growth will accelerate with the end of the pandemic and things return to their full normalcy, to be one of the fastest countries. G20 non-oil GDP growth in the coming years."
The Crown Prince indicated that the Kingdom has placed the unemployment file as one of its priorities, confirming that increasing employment rates are the top priority of the government, as work has begun according to Vision 2030 to reform the labor market and provide more jobs for male and female citizens, and Vision 2030 has set an unemployment rate of 7 % In the year 2030 as one of its goals.
"During the year 2018, the unemployment rate was approximately 13%. Because of the increase in the efficiency of government agencies and the investments of the Public Investment Fund, programs and other government initiatives, we saw the unemployment rate drop successively to 11.8% at the beginning of 2020," the Saudi Crown prince said.
"By the end of 2020, we will be from the least affected countries by the Corona pandemic in the G20, in which the unemployment rate has increased in some to 15% and 20% and more, and we believe that the programs and policies developed by the government will enable us to achieve an unemployment rate of 7% before 2030."
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, in the presence of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman; opened the work of the eighth session of the Saudi Shoura Council on Wednesday.
King Salman also said in his speech that the Kingdom is working to complete large-scale projects to facilitate the performance of pilgrims and that it was keen to prepare for the Hajj pilgrimage; under the exceptional circumstances of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Saudi Arabia also supported international efforts to contain the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic globally; the king added.
