Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it would run a budget deficit of 5.3 percent of GDP this year, more than double the previous forecast, with oil revenues falling and higher-than-expected spending.<\/p>\n
The deficit is forecast to remain high in 2026 at 3.3 percent of GDP, or 165 billion riyals ($44 billion).<\/p>\n
The finance ministry, which had previously forecast a 2025 deficit of just 2.3 percent of GDP, forecast expenditures of 1.3 trillion riyals and revenues of 1.15 trillion.<\/p>\n
It predicted GDP growth of 4.4 percent this year, driven by a five percent increase in “non-oil activities”, and of 4.6 percent next year.<\/p>\n
The Arab world’s largest economy is engaged in a major drive to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on oil revenues, with a focus on business and tourism.<\/p>\n
That includes megaprojects such as Neom, a futuristic desert metropolis.<\/p>\n
Those efforts come at a significant financial cost at a time when the finance ministry expects a decline of 13.4 percent in state revenues.<\/p>\n
That is driven in large part by recent falls in oil prices, which had spiked following the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Aramco, the world’s largest oil exporter and a cornerstone of the Saudi economy, has experienced a decline in its profits over ten consecutive quarters since achieving record results at the end of 2022.<\/p>\n
Its profits fell 4.6 percent on a yearly basis in the first quarter of the year, and by 22 percent in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
The ministry expects Saudi Arabia’s deficit to persist in 2027 and 2028, though shrinking to 2.3 percent and then 2.2 percent of GDP.<\/p>\n
sar\/dcp\/js<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it would run a budget deficit of 5.3 percent of GDP this year, more than double the previous forecast, with oil revenues falling and higher-than-expected spending. The deficit is forecast to remain high in 2026 at 3.3 percent of GDP, or 165 billion riyals ($44 billion). The finance ministry, which had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[1975,108,585,860],"class_list":["post-12131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-economy","tag-deficit","tag-economy","tag-oil","tag-saudi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}