The following lists events in the year 2020 in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

Incumbents

Monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority ...

: Salman *

Crown Prince A crown prince or hereditary prince is the heir apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The female form of the title is crown princess, which may refer either to an heiress apparent or, especially in earlier times, to the wif ...

Mohammad bin Salman Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud ( ar, محمد بن سلمان آل سعود, translit=Muḥammad bin Salmān Āl Su‘ūd; born 31 August 1985), colloquially known by his initials MBS or MbS, is Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. H ...

Events

January

*January 1 **

Yemeni rebels The Houthi movement (; ar, ٱلْحُوثِيُّون ''al-Ḥūthīyūn'' ), officially called Ansar Allah (' ''Partisans of God'' or ''Supporters of God'') and colloquially simply Houthis, is an Islamist, Islamist political and armed move ...

release some Saudi prisoners, as UN-led peace talks make progress. *January 8 **Saudi Arabia begins efforts to rebuild

power stations A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many pow ...

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

March

*2 March – The first case of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

is confirmed in

Qatif Qatif or Al-Qatif ( ar, ٱلْقَطِيف ''Al-Qaṭīf'') is a governorate and urban area located in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. It extends from Ras Tanura and Jubail in the north to Dammam in the south, and from the Persian Gulf in the ...

, marking the beginning of the

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

in the country.

April

*April 24 **Saudi Arabia banned

flogging Flagellation (Latin , 'whip'), flogging or whipping is the act of beating the human body with special implements such as whips, rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails, the sjambok, the knout, etc. Typically, flogging has been imposed on ...

as a judicial punishment. *April 26 **

Awwad Alawwad Awwad S. Alawwad (Arabic: عواد العواد; born 11 April 1972) is a Saudi politician who has served as minister of culture and information of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since April 2017, and as the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Germany fro ...

announced that, by

royal decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

, Saudi Arabia would no longer execute individuals for crimes committed while minors, replacing execution with a sentence of 10 years in a juvenile detention facility.

September

* The kingdom's economy contracted 7 percent in the second economic quarter in comparison to the same time last year. The oil sector shrank 5.3 percent this year in part due to a lack of demand as a result of the pandemic. Oil prices decreased to below $20 a barrel in April after the country entered an oil price war. While a truce among the world’s top oil producers has pushed the

price of oil The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Ref ...

up to $40 a barrel, this figure is still almost half the price of oil per barrel at the start of 2020. Furthermore, oil prices are significantly lower than the $76 a barrel the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...

(IMF) says Saudi Arabia requires in order to balance its budget this year. In fact, the kingdom obtains more than three-quarters of its earnings from oil. The kingdom’s non-oil sector shrank by 8.2 percent in the second quarter, as quarantine constraints brought business activity to an almost complete standstill. While those restrictions have been eased, the government imposed harsh austerity measures in recent months and according to experts, this may lead to a slow recovery. According to the government, the unemployment rate soared to a record high of 15.4 percent. According to analysts, recovering from such a hit might be more difficult due to budget constraints as a result of declining oil prices. The IMF expects the Saudi economy to contract by about 7 percent this year and increase growth by 3.1 percent in 2021.

November

*November 11 **The

Non–Muslim Cemetery The Non–Muslim Cemetery ("NMC" or Christian Cemetery) is a cemetery in Jeddah in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. It is located on the King Fahd Branch Road, in Jeddah's Al-Balad district. The cemetery contains more than 400 graves. A grey sarco ...

in the

Al-Balad Al-Balad ( ar, البلد, "The City"), is the 90th Surah or chapter of the Qur'an. It is composed of 20 '' ayat'' (verses). Summary *1-7 Man, though created in misery, yet boasts of his riches *8-16 Captives to be freed and the poor and orpha ...

district of

Jeddah Jeddah ( ), also spelled Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; ar, , Jidda, ), is a city in the Hejaz region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the country's commercial center. Established in the 6th century BC as a fishing village, Jeddah's pro ...

was attacked using an

Improvised explosive device An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechan ...

that injured several people. The attack took place during the annual

Armistice Day Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark Armistice of 11 November 1918, the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I a ...

commemorations to mark the cessation of hostilities in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

References

{{Year in Asia, 2020 2020s in Saudi Arabia Years of the 21st century in Saudi Arabia