{"id":103666,"date":"2026-01-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/ksa\/?p=103666"},"modified":"2026-01-05T04:37:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T04:37:27","slug":"services-exports-outpace-imports-growth-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/ksa\/2026\/01\/05\/services-exports-outpace-imports-growth-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Services exports outpace imports growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"> <strong>Saudi Arabia\u2019s services trade deficit is shrinking, with exports of international <\/strong><strong>trade services rising 26.5% y-o-y in 3Q 2025<\/strong> to SAR 58.2 bn, according to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ent.news\/2026\/1\/19.pdf\" rel=\"noopener\">data (pdf)<\/a> from the General Authority for Statistics. Total services exports hit SAR 58.2 bn during the quarter, up 26.5% y-o-y, while imports grew at a slower 5.3% to reach SAR 120.8 bn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>The export growth <\/strong><strong>was<\/strong><strong> primarily driven by travel services, which accounted for 58.1% of the <\/strong><strong>total.<\/strong> Exports of transportation services followed at SAR 9.7 bn (16.7%), with air travel accounting for 39.6% of that figure. Also contributing to the total: Communications, computers, and information services (4%), construction (3.3%), and government services (3.6%).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>Meanwhile, transportation services dominated imports at SAR 32.3 bn<\/strong>, contributing 26.7% to the total, followed closely by travel services at SAR 30.8 bn (25.5%). The remaining imports were construction services (15.3%), other business services (12%), government services (5%), and ins. and pension services (4.2%).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\">\n<p class=\"tag-border-left\">Keep an eye on transport exports<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>What\u2019s next:<\/strong> While air transport currently leads the transport exports category, the anticipated launch of Riyadh Air and the expansion of the Landbridge rail project are the next structural levers intended to flip the transport balance from a net drain to a revenue driver.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\">(<strong>** Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links<\/strong> to our background and outside sources.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Travel services took the lion\u2019s share of exports with a total value of SAR 33.8 bn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2857],"tags":[27,10,1433,309],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"class_list":["post-103666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trade","tag-economy","tag-enterpriseam-ksa","tag-general-authority-for-statistics-gastat","tag-trade","wpautop","entry"],"acf":{"mongo_id":"8e05ac10-b14d-49eb-a86a-a0d6088737c2","order":"4","is_powered_by":false,"story_type":"1","photo_url":"https:\/\/ent.news\/2026\/1\/78.jpg","photo_position":"above","homepage_title":"","full_issue_title":"Services trade deficit narrows in Saudi Arabia as exports outpace import growth","related_issue":[103658],"teaser":"Travel services took the lion\u2019s share of exports with a total value of SAR 33.8 bn","photo_link":"","related_sponsor":"","voice_url":"","en_translation_ref_id":"","section_story_id":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - 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