The data of the “National Bank of Kuwait” revealed the decline of Kuwait's balance of payments surplus by 50.19 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year.
Kuwait's balance of payments recorded a surplus of 234.6 million dinars ($772.5 million) in the first three months of this year, compared with 471 million dinars ($1.6 billion) in the same period last year (2018).
The balance of payments surplus jumped by 90.95 percent to 1.14 billion dinars in 2018, compared to a surplus of 597 million dinars in 2017.
The data also revealed that the reason of the annual decline in the balance of payments in the first quarter, was due to the decline in surplus account of goods and services by 22.42% to 1.083 billion dinars, compared with 1.396 billion dinars in the first quarter of 2018.
In the same context, the value of expatriate remittances in Kuwait during the first quarter of this year decreased by 7.88% year-on-year. This comes as a result of the Kuwaiti government's policy of supporting the localization of workers by reducing the number of foreign workers and imposing fees on remittances abroad.
Source (Economic Bulletin website, Edited)
