Data issued by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Finance showed a decrease in the deficit during the first nine months of the current fiscal year, which began last April, by 87.3 percent on an annual basis. The performance of the general budget improved, supported by the rise in oil prices, the source of income, which constituted more than 90 percent of Kuwait’s revenues after the barrel price exceeded $80.
Kuwait, which does not peg its currency to the US dollar, went through one of its worst economic crises due to the effects of the epidemic and the drop in oil prices before it rebounded, which made hypotheses about the possibility of resorting to liquidating sovereign assets to bridge the budget deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends next March.
According to the report, the budget recorded a deficit of 682.42 million dinars ($2.26 billion) between last April and December, after the deficit was at $17.9 billion a year ago. Oil revenues amounted to 11.5 billion dinars (38.1 billion dollars), an increase of about 26 percent. In the new budget, the government expects to achieve revenues of 36.1 billion dollars, expenditures of 76.3 billion dollars, and a deficit of 40 billion dollars.
Source (Al-Arab London Newspaper, Edited)
