‘We moved rapidly from lockdown to economic recovery’ Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Saudi Minister of Finance and acting Minister of Economy and Planning, said that 2020 was an extraordinary year due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, highlighting that the Kingdom showed a “very rapid” response to that crisis. The Saudi government dealt with the crisis as one team, announcing several packages to support its economy, jobs, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Al-Jadaan said during the fifth Financial Stability Forum held Dec. 6. “We moved rapidly from lockdown to economic recovery. We have also started to see preliminary promising signs of recovery, but there are still concerns,” Al-Jadaan pointed out. The public and private sectors have shown integration in facing the COVID-19 crisis. The Kingdom’s GDP will shrink by nearly 3.2 percent by 2020-end, compared to the G20 members’ average of 6 percent, he added. Moreover, the programs launched by Saudi Arabia in the last five years played a direct role in overcoming the coronavirus crisis. Elsewhere, Al-Jadaan noted that the Vision 2030 programs are still underway. The Kingdom resumed the projects and initiatives suspended during the lockdown. The spending of some projects reached 93 percent of the total expenditure allocated for the year by the end of November.