06/08/2018
* Majed Al Khalidi from Riyadh
The volume of bank credit granted to the construction sector at the end of the second quarter of this year was 99.12 billion riyals.
The volume of bank credit granted to the sector grew by about 5 percent, equivalent to 4.75 billion riyals, compared to the first quarter of this year that was amounting to 94.37 billion riyals.
According to an analysis of the unit of reports in the newspaper "Al-Eqtisadiah" and based on the data of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency "SAMA", the growth rates lending to the construction sector has improved for the second consecutive quarter, which grew by 6.18 percent in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2017.
On a yearly basis, the volume of bank credit granted to the construction sector at the end of the second quarter of 2018 decreased by 3.25 percent compared to the same period last year.
The volume of bank credit granted to the construction sector was amounted to 7.01 percent of total bank credit by the end of the second quarter of this year that was amounting to 1.414 trillion riyals.
The construction sector is the third largest activity among the main activities, as it comes after the commercial and industrial activities. The first is about 20.1% while the latter accounted for by about 12 per cent of total bank credit by the end of the second quarter of this year.
The gross domestic product of the construction sector during the first quarter of this year was about 28.83 billion riyals, which is accounting for about 4.45 percent of GDP for the same period of about 647.76 billion riyals in real terms.
The GDP of the construction sector during the first quarter fell by 2.4 percent compared to the same period last year, which amounted to about 29.55 billion riyals, with an increase of about 718 million riyals.
* Economic Reports Unit
