Kuwait recorded an actual deficit of 5.64 billion dinars ($ 18.44 billion) in the 2019-2020 fiscal year, an increase of 69 percent from the previous year. Kuwait’s total revenues fell by more than 16 percent over the fiscal year ending in March to $ 17.22 billion, according to the Kuwaiti Ministry of Finance, while expenditures fell 3.2 percent to 21.14 billion dinars.
Kuwait is working hard to consolidate its coffers, which have been depleted by the Coronavirus crisis and the decline in crude prices. Kuwait transfers ten percent of the annual revenues to one of its sovereign funds, the Future Generations Fund. In the fiscal year 2019-2020, that transfer amounted to 1.72 billion dinars, which means that the deficit before that was 3.92 billion dinars, according to the Ministry of Finance. The government intends to issue a public debt of four to five billion dinars ($ 13-16 billion) by the end of the fiscal year ending in March 2021 if parliament approves a debt law that has been under discussion for a long time.
The project was formally referred to parliament last month and would allow the government to borrow 20 billion dinars ($ 65 billion) over 30 years. Lawmakers are calling for more clarity on the ways in which the money will be spent and the payment mechanisms, in light of the government's heavy reliance on oil revenues, which accounted for 89 percent of total income in the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
Source (Reuters, Edited)
