Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabian oil barrel must reach $78 per barrel (pb) to achieve financial balance in the current year’s budget, and to be $70 pb in 2018, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) on Sunday said.
IIF’s report forecasted that the Kingdom’s output of crude oil will drop to 10 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2017, against 10.2 million (bpd) in 2016, and the production in 2018 will be the same of 2016.
IIF’s report expected that the Saudi gross domestic product (GDP) will reach $665 billion.
The report forecasted that the GDP will drop 0.5%, against growth of 1.7% in 2016, and it will rise 1.2% in 2018.
The national debt is likely to represent 19% of GDP, while the total of foreign reserve assets will make up 95% of the GDP in 2017.
It is forecasted that the current account will drop by 0.3% of GDP in 2017, compared with a decline of 4.3% in 2016, whereas it may increase by 0.6% of GDP in 2018.
