RIYADH: The Council of Economic and Development Affairs in Saudi Arabia held a virtual conference to discuss a slew of economic issues, the Saudi Press Agency reported.  During the meeting, they discussed reports, presentations and topics on its agenda, including the periodic presentation submitted by the Ministry of Economy and Planning on local and global economic developments. The presentation included an analysis of key indicators of the national economy and the growth rate witnessed recently. It commended the continuous growth of non-oil activities. It also praised the high growth rates of the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) in the non-oil private sector for the third year in a row, which reached the highest performance level among the G20 countries. It also included predictions of national economic growth, a comprehensive overview of developments of the global economy in the recent past, and an analysis of international key economic indicators. The council discussed efforts made to develop and diversify the national production of goods and services that have a competitive advantage for the Kingdom, in line with the Saudi Vision 2030 goals. The presentation addressed priority economic activities that have attractive advantages for the development of the industrial sector, such as metal works, the automobile industry, computer and electronic products, and activities in service sectors such as tourism, transportation and logistics, communications and information technology. The council also discussed the updates to programs aimed to achieve Saudi Vision 2030, latest developments regarding the performance of public sector entities as well as highlights from the reports of supervisory committees for privatization projects during the first half of this year.