Weekly Market Brief – 11/18/2022

Saudi Arabia Macroeconomic Developments

• Saudi Arabia’s inflation rate slightly eased to 3 percent in October 2022 from a 15-month high of 3.1 percent in September. The cost of food and beverages surged by 4.4 percent, driven particularly by meat prices at 6.1 percent. Wholesale inflation slowed for a seventh straight month to 4.6 percent in October 2022, the lowest since June 2020.

• The construction sector was deemed the second biggest non-oil sector in the Kingdom, generating SAR255 billion ($67.8 billion) annually, according to the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing. It was also reported that over 175,000 companies work in the contracting sector which employs four million workers.

• Point-of-sale (POS) transactions reached SAR10.6 billion ($2.8 billion) in the week ended November 12, a 10 percent decline from last week’s SAR 11.8 billion ($3.1 billion), according to the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA). Approximately 154.21 million transactions were processed during the week.