“Our economy has the potential to meet challenges”, King Salman assured his subjects in a speech following the budget’s release.
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Domestic fuels have been heavily subsidized, but Riyadh has been under pressure to bring its spending under control as its budget deficit in 2015 ballooned to Riyal 367 billion due to lower revenue from crude exports.
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Saudi Arabia posted a $98 billion budget deficit this year as oil, its biggest source of income, sank to the lowest level in 11 years.
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The Saudi Finance Ministry this week reported total revenue for fiscal year 2015 at $162 billion, an estimated 15 percent decline from budgeted revenues.
“The result of the programme will be to increase energy efficiency, national economy and create many jobs”, he said.
Saudi’s government ran a deficit of $97.9bn (SAR367bn) in 2015, according to Arabian Business, citing Reuters.
As of 8am GMT, Brent benchmark was trading at $36.75 per barrel, while United States crude West Texas Intermediate stood at $36.91.
The November data showed Saudi Arabia slowing its sales of foreign securities; the central bank’s holdings of these dropped 0.5 per cent from the previous month to $425 billion.
RIYADH-Saudi Arabia won’t change its current oil-production policy, the country’s energy minister said Wednesday, sticking with a strategy of unrestrained output that has helped send oil prices to multiyear lows.
Spending for the year hit 975bn riyals, some 13 per cent more than forecast. Saudi Arabia normally overspends its budget projections by around 20 percent.
Revenues are also expected to fall to around SAR 517bn next year as oil prices have plunged from a five-year high of $125 a barrel in March 2012 to just $37.18 in December.
The government also said it was hiking prices for fuels, water and electricity as well as gas feedstock used by industry, as part of politically sensitive subsidy reforms. That’s less than half the $56 per barrel priced into the projected 2015 budget.
The kingdom withdrew more than $80bn this year from its reserves, which stood at $732bn at the end of 2014, and issued bonds worth about $20bn.
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Brent for February settlement rose 5 cents, or 0.1 percent, to USD36.67 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange at 8:22 a.m. Dubai time.
