grow by 1.7 percent in 2026<\/a> before accelerating to 5.5 percent in 2027.<\/p>\n\n\tDomestic demand, government spending and the continued implementation of Vision 2030 projects are set\u00a0to support non-oil activity even as regional tensions weigh on confidence and trade.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe latest survey suggests that domestic demand is gradually strengthening as market conditions normalize following recent regional disruptions, supporting sustained increases in both output and new orders,\u201d Naif Al-Ghaith, chief economist at Riyad Bank, said.<\/p>\n
\n\tOutput up<\/p>\n
\n\tBusiness activity also remained robust in July, with around 19 percent of surveyed firms reporting higher output, compared with just 4 percent reporting a decline, highlighting a broad-based improvement in operating conditions.<\/p>\n
\n\tAl-Ghaith said: \u201cExternal demand, however, continued to face headwinds. Export orders declined for the fifth consecutive month as elevated freight costs and regional tensions weighed on international trade, although the pace of contraction eased compared with previous months.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMeanwhile, improving supplier performance and stronger local sourcing contributed to faster delivery times, highlighting the growing resilience of domestic supply chains despite ongoing logistical challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDespite the improvement in conditions, business confidence for the year ahead eased from June\u2019s five-month high, with only 8 percent of surveyed firms expecting output to increase over the next 12 months as regional uncertainty continued to weigh on sentiment.<\/p>\n
\n\tCost pressures continue to ease<\/p>\n
\n\tThe chief economist further explained that cost pressures also showed signs of gradual easing and that input price inflation moderated to its slowest pace in four months as purchase price increases softened.<\/p>\n
\n\tFirms passed part of these costs on to customers through higher selling prices, but the pace of output price inflation eased slightly from June, suggesting that inflationary pressures are becoming more manageable, he highlighted.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe sustained expansion in domestic demand, resilient business activity and improving supply side conditions reinforce our expectation that Saudi Arabia\u2019s non-oil economy will maintain solid growth momentum through the second half of the year, supported by strong underlying economic fundamentals and continued progress in economic diversification,\u201d Al-Ghaith said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIYADH:\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u2019s non-oil private sector maintained solid growth in July, with\u00a0the Purchasing Managers\u2019 Index standing at 53.1 supported…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-558762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}