The government of the Sultanate of Oman reported a sharp decline in the budget deficit in the first half of this year, shrinking by 53 percent year-on-year to 660.6 million riyals ($1.72 billion).
According to the data derived by the National Center for Statistics and Information of Oman (Hukoomi), the budget deficit reached about 660.6 million riyals ($1.72 billion) in the first half of this year compared with 1.4 billion riyals ($3.64 billion) in the first half of 2018.
Revenue from the budget amounted to 5.51 billion riyals ($14.3 billion), compared to 4.94 billion riyals ($12.8 billion) in the same period of last year. In terms of government expenditures, they declined during the first half of this year by 2.8 percent after the rationalization of spending in government institutions. Total spending in that period was 6.17 billion riyals ($16 billion) compared with 6.35 billion riyals ($16.54 billion) in the same period last year.
The budget deficit for this whole year is likely to be significantly lower than the initial budget deficit of 2.8 billion riyals ($7.3 billion) earlier this year.
Source (Al-Arab - London Newspaper, Edited)
