* The Saudi economy bounced back from 2020’s Covid woes last year, registering 3.3% real-terms year-on-year growth for 2021. This was still insufficient to offset the 4.1% fall posted in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in large parts of the economy grinding to a halt.

* For 2022, the government expects economic growth to accelerate further to 7.4% for the year as a whole. This would be a further acceleration from the strong growth posted in late 2021, when the economy grew by 7.0% and 6.8% in the third and fourth quarters respectively. (CONTINUED - 233 WORDS)