Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi government has started preparing the 2018 budget in January and the first draft should be ready in two months, finance minister Mohammed Al Jadaan told Bloomberg.
The minister added that the budget will be “expansionary but not significantly”, and will be in line with the plans of the fiscal balance programme 2020.
“Where the expansion will come is from the efficiency,” Al Jadaan noted, adding “we are working on that - reducing a lot of the fat that is not necessary and then utilising that in more productive investments.”
Saudi Arabia’s fiscal balance programme is a part of its long-term plan to reduce dependency on oil, including the creation of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund and privitisation of some state assets.
The KSA budget recorded net deficit of SAR 26.21 billion ($7 billion) in the first quarter of 2017.
Revenues reached SAR 144.07 billion, while expenses amounted to SAR 170.29 billion in Q1-17.
The estimated budget for 2017 expected revenues to reach SAR 692 million, including SAR 480 billion as oil revenues and SAR 212 billion as non-oil revenues.
Expenses were estimated at SAR 890 billion so that the expected deficit would reach SAR 198 billion in 2017.
