Saudi Arabia’s government will reportedly unveil a plan to balance its high deficit and work to achieve a surplus in 2020, according to a senior government official with knowledge of the matter as quoted in Bloomberg.
The plan was devised by the powerful Council on Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA), which is chaired by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Bloomberg reports.
Saudi Arabia has one of the highest budget deficits in the Middle East.
According to Bloomberg, the government is “looking into two scenarios for the increase in local retail fuel prices” to help close its budget gap by “either linking them to benchmark oil prices or to the average of gasoline and diesel fuel prices on the international market, the anonymous government official said.
Initial figures released by the government show the budget deficit for 2017 will decline to 198 billion riyals ($52.79 billion) or 7.7 percent of gross domestic product, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on its website on Thursday. That compares with 297 billion riyals or 11.5 percent of GDP this year and 362 billion riyals in 2015.
