KSA population is 30.8m; 33% expats

RIYADH: ARAB NEWS

Saturday 31 January 2015



Saudi Arabia’s population stood at 30.8 million at the end of 2014, a 2.6 percent rise from 2013, according to data released by the Kingdom’s Central Department of Statistics and Information (CDSI).
There were 20.7 million Saudis, making up 67 percent of the population, while the number of foreigners stood at 10.1 million or 33 percent, according to an analysis conducted by the economics reporting unit of Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper.
The population had grown by 2.7 percent from 2012 to 2013, amounting to 29.2 million people. This consisted of 20.3 million Saudis and 9.7 million foreigners.
The CDSI said that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood at SR2.82 trillion at the end of 2014, while per capita GDP was SR91,700.
Per capita GDP had grown by 9 percent over the past 11 years, an annual increase of SR4,900.
The highest per capita GDP growth was between 2004 and 2005, when it grew by 23 percent, or from SR43,000 to SR52,800.
According to the analysis, per capita GDP dropped 19 percent between 2008 and 2009, from SR87,600 to SR63,400, as a result of the global financial crisis.
Al-Eqtisadiah had estimated that the Kingdom’s population would reach 37.2 million by the year 2020 based on the average annual growth rate over the past nine years