AFP – Kuwait’s provisional budget surplus shrunk in the first nine months of this fiscal year as spending rose 18 percent and income was unchanged, according to official figures released Sunday.
The provisional budget surplus of the OPEC member dropped 11 percent to 14.34 billion dinars ($50.7bn, 37bn euros) at the end of December compared to 16.1 billion dinars in the same period of the previous year, according to figures posted on the ministry of finance website.
Spending in the nine-month period was 9.64 billion dinars compared to just 8.16 billion dinars in the same period of the previous fiscal year.
Kuwait’s fiscal year runs from 1 April to 31 March.
Revenues in the first three quarters of the 2013/2014 fiscal year came in at 24.0 billion dinars, slightly less than the 24.26 billion posted in the same period of the previous year.
Oil income, which makes up over 92% of total revenues, dropped slightly from 22.84 billion dinars in the 2012-2013 fiscal year to 22.2 billion dinars in the current year.
Spending on development projects has been hampered by political disputes in recent years, but picked up slightly in recent months with the award of a number of megaprojects worth several billion dollars.
Kuwait is projecting spending in the current fiscal year, which ends on 31 March, at 21.0 billion dinars, with revenues at 18.1 billion dinars, leaving a deficit of 2.9 billion dinars.
Kuwait has projected a deficit in each of the past 14 fiscal years but ended with large surpluses because it assumes a conservative price for oil.
In the previous fiscal year, the emirate posted an actual surplus of 12.7 billion dinars, following a record 13.2 billion-dinar surplus in 2011-2012.
Thanks to higher than expected income driven by firm oil prices, Kuwait decided for the second year in a row to transfer 25% of revenues into the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund, the assets of which are currently estimated at over $400bn.
Kuwait has a native population of 1.2 million, in addition to 2.7 million foreigners, and pumps about 3.0 million barrels of oil per day.
