The final draft of Bahrain's budget for the next two years revealed that the government does not expect to achieve some of the main goals it set last year under the fiscal balance program.
Bahrain faces many obstacles in the course of implementing its reform program because of the few options that could enable it to quickly escape its crisis.
The new draft budget foresees that other items will not meet all earlier estimates, such as non-oil revenues and government spending.
The deficit reduction program is running faster than planned, with the deficit falling to 6.2 percent of GDP in 2018, compared with an expected deficit of 9.8 percent. The budget for 2019 and 2020, which has been approved by the parliament, expects an initial surplus next year.
According to the International Monetary Fund's forecast of Bahrain's GDP, Manama's non-oil revenues will reach 5.4 percent of GDP this year, 5.7 percent in 2020, while the expectations falls to 6.2 and 6.6 percent respectively in the fiscal balance program last year.
Source (Al-Arab Newspaper – London, Edited)
