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The economy of Saudi Arabia is the largest in the Middle East and the eighteenth largest in the world. A permanent and founding member of OPEC, Saudi Arabia is also a member of the G20 forum as one of the world's largest economies.
Saudi Arabia reportedly has the third most valuable natural resource reserves in the world, mostly petroleum and natural gas. The kingdom has the second-largest proven petroleum reserves, and the fourth-largest measured natural gas reserves. Saudi Arabia is currently the largest exporter of petroleum in the world, which sees it occasionally referred to as a petrostate in Western media. Other major parts of the economy include refining and chemical manufacturing from the oil reserves, much of which is vertically integrated in the state-owned enterprise, Saudi Aramco.
In 2016, the Saudi government launched its Saudi Vision 2030 program to reduce its dependency on oil and diversify its economic resources. In the first quarter of 2019, Saudi Arabia's budget had its first surplus since 2016. This surplus of $10.10 billion was achieved due to an increase in oil and non-oil revenues. (Full article...)