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29 March 2024

Kuwait income, surplus surge

Published
By AFP

Kuwait's provisional budget surplus in the first eight months of the fiscal year doubled to 11.6 billion dinars ($41.8 billion) on high oil price and output, the finance ministry said on Tuesday.

Revenues until the end of November rose a massive 41.6 per cent to 18.7 billion dinars ($67.3 billion) from $47.5 billion in the year-earlier period, according to data on the ministry website.

The revenues are 39.2 per cent higher than full-year estimates of $48.4 billion.

Kuwait has calculated oil income at a conservative price of $60 a barrel while the average price of Kuwaiti crude was above $105 in the eight-month period.

The budget also assumed oil production of 2.2 million barrels per day in accordance with previous OPEC quota, but Kuwait has been producing 3.0 million bpd for the past few months.

Oil income surged 43.9 per cent to 17.75 billion dinars ($63.8 billion) and was 44.3 per cent higher than estimates for the whole fiscal year.

Revenue from oil represented 95 per cent of total public income.

Spending remained almost unchanged at 7.1 billion dinars ($25.5 billion) and is way below the year's estimated spending of 19.4 billion dinars ($70 billion).

However, capital spending on development projects dropped 16.3 per cent to $2.6 billion from $3.1 billion.

Continued political crises in the oil-rich emirate have been blamed for the delay in key development projects.

Kuwait's fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31.

The emirate has ended the past 12 fiscal years in the black, amassing surpluses of around $200 billion.

Kuwait, which says it sits on 10 per cent of proven global crude reserves, also holds assets of more than $300 billion run by the Kuwait Investment Authority, the emirate's sovereign wealth fund.