“These are the priorities: the health care of people and the livelihood of people, and we want to make sure that we maintain our fiscal strength so that as the economy gets out of the lockdown, we are able to support the economy. We are not cutting spending, we are reallocating spending. So, we would end up with spending almost as budgeted because of the increase in spending that we have allocated both to support the economy and the private sector and the jobs of Saudi employees in the private sector.”
-H.E. Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Saudi Arabia’s minister of finance, in a telephone interview discussing new austerity measures taken by the Kingdom in the face of harsh economic realities resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic. [bloomberg.com]
