Foreign direct investment in Saudi Arabia falls by 21.2%

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Economy and Planning said on Thursday that the flow of foreign direct investment to the Kingdom decreased by 21.2% year-over-year to 6.2 billion riyals in the second quarter of 2023.

Foreign direct investment decreased by 23.8% in the second quarter of 2023, on a quarterly basis.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Planning, foreign direct investment in the Kingdom amounted to about 8.1 billion riyals in the first quarter of the year.

Saudi Arabia, in consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has worked on a new methodology for calculating foreign direct investment statistics through cooperation between the Ministry of Investment, the General Authority for Statistics, and the Central Bank of Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom pointed out that this methodology aims to improve the quality and transparency of its foreign direct investment data in accordance with the best international practices, explaining that its final data will be published this year.