Prices will also increase for electricity, water, diesel and kerosene under the cuts decided by the council of ministers headed by King Salman. Higher electricity, water, and gas tariffs were announced by the Saudi Press Agency on Twitter, following the release of the Kingdom’s 2016 budget on Monday.
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Saudi Arabia announced its first budget under King Salman, who ascended to the throne in January, amid plans to gradually cut subsidies and sell stakes in government entities to counter the drop in oil revenue.
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Spending was envisaged at 840 billion riyals ($224 billion), slightly below 2015 projections of $229 billion, and down from 975 billion riyals actually spent this year.
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RIYADH-Saudi Arabia on Monday unveiled plans to cut expenditures and sharply raised domestic fuel prices as the world’s top oil exporter attempts to cope with a new era of cheap crude prices. To cover the difference between its spending and revenue over the past year, Saudi Arabia has drawn its reserves down from $728 billion at the end of last year to around $640 billion.
The IMF had projected the 2015 deficit to be around $130 billion and other reports also put it above $100 billion.
Consequently, next year’s budget aims to reduce that to $85.9bn (SAR326bn) in a bid to ensure Riyadh does not have to liquidate its foreign assets for funds.
FILE – In this Monday, Sept. 14, 2015 file photo, a Saudi youth checks his phone while riding a scooter on the corniche of Jeddah, one of the lesser conservative cites in Saudi Arabia.
Total Saudi government revenues were estimated at SR 608 billion, of which non-oil revenues such as customs duties, investment dividends, and documents fees totaled SR 163.5 billion.
Saudi Arabia is trying to maintain its share of the global oil market rather than use its power in OPEC to curb United States producers. 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.
After years of spending its massive oil wealth to bolster the local economy and provide subsidized energy and other utilities to its 30 million people, a steep decline in oil prices has forced the kingdom to reassess these plans.
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Government spending reached SAR 975bn in 2015, 15 per cent more than expected, further squeezing public finances. The lower spending figures mean that, if oil recovers to US$45 per barrel next year, Saudi Arabia will run a fiscal deficit of 16 per cent of GDP, according to Alp Eke, chief economist at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.
