Government | Monday 29 May, 2017 3:34 pm |

Saudi Arabia has achieved most of the 17 goals for comprehensive sustainable development of the UN, thus surpassing the achievements of the UN Agenda 2030.
The success in reaching those goals are a result of the structural reforms adopted by the government of King Salman on many development levels including social, financial, administration and productive.
The announcement was made in a speech by Abdullah Al-Marwani, assistant undersecretary for Planning and National Policies at the Ministry of Economy and Planning during the Second Forum of Economic and Social Council on financing for development. The forum was held at the UN headquarters this week.
Al-Marwani said the Kingdom is working in the direction of development and has not spared any efforts to develop the economy of the country toward further progress and prosperity.
He pointed out that Vision 2030, especially the National Transformation Program (NTP) 2020, aims to achieve the UN objectives by encouraging and creating more investment initiatives in human capital, infrastructure, education, health and alternative energy to diversify the economic base, and promote social gains from comprehensive development.
“The Kingdom has already achieved most of the overall goals of sustainable development of the 17 goals of the UN.
Sometimes these achievements exceeded the goals of the UN Agenda 2030 with the average annual economic growth of the Kingdom amounting to about 3.6 percent, higher than the global average,” said Al-Marwani.
He added: “In addition, the overall financing is progressing at a steady pace where the domestic credit ratio provided by the financial sector increased from 1.8 percent in 2010 to 20.8 percent in 2015. One of the most important goals achieved in the health sector in the Kingdom is life expectancy at birth where this has increased from 72.5 in 2000 to 74.5 in 2015.”