Saudi Arabia recorded steady growth in the localization of private-sector jobs and saw a surplus in its trade balance last August, amounting to SR18.39 billion.
Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) announced in its monthly report that the total Saudi exports reached SR57.3 billion in August, compared to SR38.9 billion in imports.
Official figures showed that commodity exports decreased by 25.1 percent, compared to the same period last year, to reach SR57.38 billion.
Saudi merchandise exports were affected by the decline in oil exports, which amounted to about 33.8 percent, while the Kingdom's exports rose 12.2 percent between August and July, with an increase of SR6.2 billion.
The Kingdom's non-oil exports grew about 5.7 percent in August to SR17.7 billion, compared to SR16.8 billion during the same month in 2019.
However, the imports declined 17.3 percent in August, compared to the same period last year, to reach SR38.9 billion, which was SR47.1 billion riyals in 2019.
Notably, Jeddah Islamic Port received about 31 percent of total Saudi imports, amounting to SR12.1 billion.
Meanwhile, the Saudi National Labor Observatory (NLO) announced that Saudization in the private sector increased to 21.54 percent of the total private sector workforce during the third quarter of 2020, compared to 20.40 percent during the same period last year.
The Observatory, affiliated with the Human Resources Development Fund (HADAF), stated that the number of Saudi employees in the private sector who are subscribers of the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) reached about 1.76 million in Q3, an increase of about 81,000 subscribers compared to Q2 of 2020.
The Eastern Province ranked first in the Saudization of jobs in the private sector with a rate of 25.16 percent, followed by Riyadh with 21.89 percent, Makkah 21.47 percent, Madinah 19.27 percent, and Asir 17.85 percent.
