RIYADH: From May 11 to May 17, jewellery sales in Saudi Arabia increased 13.2% over the previous week, bringing the total value of point-of-sale transactions to SR330.4 million ($88 million). It was one of just two sectors to see growth during that time, according to the most recent statistics from Saudi Arabia’s national bank, SAMA. Education also saw a gain of 1.4 percent to SR164.6 million.
Due to lower expenditure in most sectors, the Kingdom’s total POS transactions fell 5.5% to SR12.3 billion for the seven days. The most significant decline was in hotel expenditure, which fell 18.1% to SR218.2 million. After that, spending on clothing and footwear dropped 10.4% to SR688.2 million, while on culture and recreation dropped 9.3% to SR229.4 million.
Spending on petrol stations, building materials and construction saw the smallest decreases, down 1.7% to SR929.7 million and SR330.1 million, respectively. Public utilities fell 4.3 percent to SR47 million, while the health sector fell 4.8 percent to SR790.1 million.
Following the pattern, electronics had a 4.5 percent decline to SR1653.8 million, while furniture saw a 3.7 percent decline to SR261.8 million. The telecommunications industry’s transaction value fell by 5.5% to SR98.3 million. Spending on food and drink accounted for the greatest portion of the week’s POS, down 4.7% to SR1.8 billion.
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