Global sukuk issuance expected to remain steady in 2024: S&P

RIYADH: The registration of regional maritime clubs in Saudi Arabia experienced a 49 percent growth in 2023, official data revealed.

The latest business sector bulletin by the Ministry of Commerce showed the number of registrations by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023 reached 580, compared to 389 by the end of 2022.

Makkah topped the list of the top five regions with 233, followed by Riyadh with 197 and the Eastern Province with 90. 

The fourth position was held by Al-Madinah with 21 registrations, followed by Aseer with 6.

“The formation of promising sectors represents one of the opportunities launched by the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 for both local and foreign business sectors,” said the ministry.

Similarly, the resorts sector surged in the last quarter of 2023, reaching 51 percent growth in registrations with 3,377, compared to 2,236 in the same period of 2022.

Makkah also topped the list of the top five regions with 1,346 enrollments, followed by Riyadh with 1,148 and the Eastern Province with 251.

Al-Madinah came in fourth with 228, followed by Al-Qassim with 112.

Saudi Arabia’s cloud computing registrations saw a 40 percent increase in the fourth quarter of 2023, with the issuance of 1,759 permits between October and December 2023, compared to 1,252 in the corresponding period of 2022.

Riyadh, topped the list with 1,062 permits, followed by Makkah with 346, and the Eastern Province with 216.

This surge underscores the Kingdom’s aim to make the region a hub for technology by 2030.

According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development index, as disclosed in the government bulletin, Saudi Arabia secured the eighth spot globally among the leading 10 developing economies in e-commerce “out of 152 countries.” The predicted e-commerce revenues for the country are expected to reach SR260 billion by 2025.

The Kingdom anticipates a compound annual growth rate of 15 percent in e-commerce from 2020 to 2025. The venture investment in startups within the e-commerce sector reached SR446 million in 2022.

The figures for the fourth quarter of 2023 revealed a 23 percent growth in the issuance of commercial records compared to the same quarter of the previous year. 

Riyadh, Makkah, and the Eastern Province topped the Kingdom’s regions in the number of issued records.

Riyadh issued 33,343 records, followed by Makkah with 20,535 and the Eastern Province with 13,546.

Notably, 45 percent of the total exported records belong to women-owned enterprises.

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