Saudi budget data for the first quarter of this year showed that the Kingdom's quarterly revenues reached 205 billion riyals compared to expenses of 212 billion riyals, thus bringing the budget deficit to 7.4 billion riyals, which was fully financed through borrowing.
The Kingdom's revenues from oil in the first quarter amounted to 117 billion riyals, while non-oil revenues amounted to 88 billion riyals. Thus, the oil revenues of Saudi Arabia accounted for 57 percent of the total revenues of the first quarter of this year. With these figures, 24 percent of the expected revenues for Saudi Arabia for 2021 were achieved in the first quarter of the year.
In addition, the International Monetary Fund expected real GDP growth in Saudi Arabia of 2.1 percent during the current year and 4.8 percent next year, compared to a previous estimate of the fund at 4 percent. In contrast, Saudi non-oil GDP growth is expected to reach 3.9 percent in the current 2021 and 3.6 percent in 2022.
The IMF expected real GDP to contract by 0.5 percent in 2021 in light of the levels of oil production agreed upon in the framework of OPEC +. It also expected a decrease in the fiscal deficit to 4.2 percent of GDP by the end of 2021.
Source (Al-Arabiya.net, Edited)
