دور العلاقات الاقتصادية الدولية في نمو و تنويع الاقتصاد السعودي

Abstract EN

Although oil is an essential pillar of the economy and the main driver of international economic relations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, achieving the ambitious vision (2030) mainly focuses on the enhancement of economic growth and diversification the economy and investment in non-oil sectors.

Hence, this study aims to identify the impact of international economic relations on economic growth and diversification.

The econometric approach is applied to estimate the impact of the development of international economic relations on economic growth and diversification in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the period 1980-2019.

The ARDL cointegration approach was utilized, through two growth models; for the oil sector and for the non-oil sector.

The GDP represents the dependent variable for economic growth, and the independent variables are: exports, imports, foreign direct investment, real exchange rate, and personal remittances of labor.

The results reveal the existence of long-term equilibrium relations.

The study concluded that the oil sector is still the dominant one in the Saudi economy, while non-oil output requires more diversification efforts and encouragement of exports and investment in the non-oil sectors.

Subsequently, the study recommends the necessity of exploiting oil revenues for the sake of investing in promising sectors.

Strengthening the Kingdom's international economic relation should be focused on technology transfer, advancing the knowledge and digital economy, and supporting non-oil sector by attracting foreign investments and making the most from expatriate labor.