In April 2025, the annual inflation rate in Saudi Arabia was 2.3%, which was the same as it was in April 2024 and the previous month of this year. The General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) released its monthly statistics bulletin, which showed that an 11.9% increase in apartment rents had the biggest impact on inflation or the Consumer Price Index.
Housing, water, electricity, gas, and fuel prices increased by 6–8%, according to the report. This increase was primarily caused by an 8–1% increase in residential rents, which was influenced by an 11–9% increase in apartment rents. Because this category has a weight of 25%, its increase had a major effect on the ongoing rate of annual inflation in April.
Prices for food and drink increased by 2 percentage points, with the price of vegetables rising by 9 percentage points. Due to a 5.6% increase in post-secondary non-tertiary education fees, the education category saw a 1.3% increase.
Prices for jewellery, watches, and valuable antiques increased by 21.9%, contributing to a 31.5% increase in the miscellaneous personal goods and services category, according to the GASTAT report. Restaurant and hotel prices also rose by 2%, driven by a 2% increase in catering services.
However, due to a 3 to 5% drop in the cost of furniture, carpets, and floor coverings, the home furnishings and equipment category saw a 1 to 8% drop in prices. Ready-made clothing prices dropped 2 points, contributing to a 1.2% drop in prices for the clothing and footwear category.
A 1.8% drop in the purchase price of cars contributed to a 2.1% drop in prices for the transportation category.
In the Consumer Price Index, the recreation and culture category saw a 0.4 per cent drop in prices, while the transportation, communications, and health categories saw a 0.1% drop. In April 2025, tobacco product prices stayed mostly the same.
Saudi’s economy, meanwhile, grew in the first quarter, supported by activity in the non-oil sector as the Gulf nation pushes on to diversify away from hydrocarbons, under the ambitious “Vision 2030” agenda. Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 2.7% year-on-year in the first quarter.
GASTAT has also updated and expanded its data collection and said its nominal and real GDP time series have been revised accordingly.
Fahad al Dossari, the President of the government body, said, “The demand from everybody, when we met with them, they were always hungry for more details, more statistics, more data. So, the local demand is the main driver for this.”
The authority has also increased the weighting of the non-oil sector to better align with international standards and data quality. Under the new parameters, non-oil activities increased by 4.2% in the first quarter, in addition to the growth of government activities by 3.2%.
“Private sector activity remained solid, which we continue to see reflecting the progress with the investment programme. There was a notable quarterly jump in government activity, likely boosted by the relatively supported oil price in the first quarter,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, while interacting with Reuters.
“We expect to see some pullback in government spending from the second quarter with the sharply lower oil price, which is expected to dampen government activity for the remainder of the year,” she concluded.