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Riyadh / AFP
Saudi Arabia on Thursday projected a 2017 budget deficit of about $53 billion and a lower than expected shortfall for this year after government cost-cutting in response to lower oil prices.
Expenses next year will reach 890 billion riyals ($237 billion) against revenues of 692 billion riyals ($184 billion), cabinet said in a statement.
It said this year’s deficit will be 297 billion riyals ($79 billion), down 8.9 percent from 2016’s budget forecast.
Revenues for this year are expected at 528 billion riyals, higher than projections a year ago of 513.75 billion.
Spending is expected to come in at 825 billion riyals for 2016, 1.8 percent lower than foreseen.
The world’s biggest oil exporter froze major building projects, cut cabinet ministers’ salaries, and imposed a wage freeze on civil servants in the wake of last year’s record deficit, which reached $97 billion.
Meanwhile the Saudi Arabia projects a 6.7 percent rise in defence spending in 2017 to 191 billion riyals ($50.8 billion), according to official budget figures released on Thursday.
The kingdom, one of the world’s biggest military spenders, forecasts a decline in Security and Regional Administration, a separate spending category that is military-related, to 96.7 billion riyals from 102.3 billion.
Military spending was originally projected at 179 billion riyals in 2016 but actual military spending has been around 205.1 billion. Security and Regional Administration spending will be 100.6 billion in 2016, according to the budget’s preliminary estimates.