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Fueled by enormous revenues from oil exports, the economy boomed during the 1970s and ’80s. Unlike most developing countries, Saudi Arabia had an abundance of capital, and vast development projects sprung up that turned the once underdeveloped country into a modern state. During that time, unemployment was all but nonexistent—large numbers of foreign workers were imported to do the most menial and the most highly technical tasks—and per capita income and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita were among the highest in the non-Western world.
Long-range economic development has been directed through a series of five-year plans. The first two five-year plans (1970–75 and 1976–80) established most of the country’s basic transport and communications facilities. Subsequent plans sought to diversify the economy; to increase domestic food production; to improve education, vocational training, and health services; and to further improve communications routes between the different regions of the country. But the economic boom was not without a price. As world oil prices stagnated in the 1990s, government policies encouraging larger families led to a marked increase in population. GDP per capita actually began to fall in real terms, and the kingdom’s young, highly educated workforce began to face high rates of unemployment and underemployment for the first time. However, those trends reversed as oil prices again rose. In addition, five-year plans were directed toward increasing the share of private enterprise in the economy in an effort to move away from dependence on oil exports and to generate jobs.
Agriculture
At its founding, the kingdom inherited the traditional economy of Arabia. Many of the people were nomads, engaged in raising camels, sheep, and goats. Agricultural production was localized and subsistent. The kingdom’s development plans have given domestic food production special attention, and the government has made subsidies and generous incentives available to the agriculture sector. Agriculture now contributes only a small fraction of the Saudi GDP and employs a comparable proportion of the workforce.
Less than 2 percent of the total land area is used for crops. Of the cultivated land, about half consists of rain-fed dry farming (mostly in Asir), two-fifths is in tree crops, and the remainder is irrigated. Most of the irrigated areas—in the districts of Riyadh and Al-Qaṣīm, for example, and near Al-Hufūf in Al-Sharqiyyah province—utilize underground water.
The kingdom has achieved self-sufficiency in the production of wheat, eggs, and milk, among other commodities, though it still imports the bulk of its food needs. Wheat is the primary cultivated grain, followed by sorghum and barley. Dates, melons, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, and squash are also important crops.
Two major constraints on cultivation are poor water supply and poor soil. Concrete and earth-filled dams have been built, primarily in the southwest, to store water for irrigation and as a means of flood control. Agricultural expansion has been great in irrigated areas, while the amount of land given to rain-fed farming has decreased. Substantial resources of subterranean water have been discovered in the central and eastern parts of the country and exploited for agriculture; however, these underground aquifers are difficult to renew.
Resources and power
Petroleum
The economy of Saudi Arabia is dominated by petroleum and its associated industries. In terms of oil reserves, Saudi Arabia ranks first internationally, with about one-fifth of the world’s known reserves. Oil deposits are located in the east, southward from Iraq and Kuwait into the Rubʿ al-Khali and under the waters of the Persian Gulf.
The discovery of oil changed the entire economic situation of Saudi Arabia. As early as 1923, Ibn Saud granted an oil-prospecting concession to a British company, but this concession was never exploited. Although oil was discovered in 1938, World War II curtailed oil-producing activities until near its end. The Ras Tanura (Raʾs Tanūrah) refinery was opened in 1945, and rapid expansion of the oil industry followed to meet increasing postwar demand.
In 1951 the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) discovered the first offshore field in the Middle East, at Raʾs Al-Saffāniyyah, just south of the former Saudi Arabia–Kuwait neutral zone, and oil was discovered in the zone itself in 1953. Al-Ghawār, just south of Dhahran and west of Al-Hufūf, is one of the world’s largest oil fields. The first portion of the Al-Ghawār oil field was discovered at ʿAyn Dār in 1948. Intensive exploration of the Rubʿ al-Khali began in 1950, and oil fields were finally discovered in the area in the 1970s.
In 1950 Aramco put into operation the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (Tapline), which ran from Al-Qayṣūmah in Saudi Arabia across Jordan and Syria to its Mediterranean terminal at Sidon, Lebanon. The line was in operation only sporadically during the 1970s, and in 1983 it ceased to function beyond supplying a refinery in Jordan. In 1981 Petroline, built to carry crude oil, was completed from Al-Jubayl on the Persian Gulf to Yanbuʿ on the Red Sea, and this greatly shortened the distance to Europe and obviated navigation through the gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Petroline was built by the General Petroleum and Mineral Organization (Petromin), a government-owned corporation. Aramco constructed a massive gas-gathering system and, parallel to Petroline, a pipeline for transporting natural gas liquids, which reached Yanbuʿ in 1981.
During the 1970s and early ’80s Saudi Arabia gradually acquired complete ownership of Aramco, and in 1984 Aramco had its first Saudi president. In 1988 the company was renamed Saudi Aramco.
Other resources
Other mineral resources are known to exist, and the government has pursued a policy of exploration and production in order to diversify the economic base. Geologic reconnaissance mapping of the Precambrian shield in the west has revealed deposits of gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, iron, titanium, pyrite, magnesite, platinum, and cadmium. There are also nonmetallic resources such as limestone, silica, gypsum, and phosphorite.
Scarcity of water is a perennial problem in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has the largest single desalination program in the world, which meets most domestic and industrial needs. Underwater aquifers provide a limited amount of potable water, and a great deal of energy has been committed to constructing dams for water storage and to developing water-recycling plants.
The kingdom has relied increasingly on electricity, and electrical production has grown rapidly since the 1970s. Originally highly decentralized, electrical production was slowly centralized under state control during the latter half of the 20th century. In 2000 electrical production was consolidated under a single corporation in an effort to develop a comprehensive national grid. Most of the kingdom’s generators are powered by natural gas and diesel fuel.