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In a televised interview with Sky News Arabia on
the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
meetings held recently in Washington, USA, Kuwait’s
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and
Acting Oil Minister HEAnas Al Saleh said that Kuwait
has enough reserves that allow for taking calculated
decisions to handle the global oil price slump. In line
with its financial and economic policies for more than
60 years, Kuwait has been able to create financial
surplus to feed into the future generations’ fund. He
pointed out that investment revenues are not part of the
state’s public budget income calculations.
The Minister said that the breakeven price for
Kuwait’s public budget is about $66 per barrel. He
added that Kuwait has the capacity to handle such prices
for a limited period of time while seeking to activate
reform measures through cutting expenditure and
maximizing income. As for public debt, he stated that
by comparing the public debt percentage to Kuwait’s
GDP, there would be a big demand for Kuwaiti bonds
in global markets.
HE Al Saleh explained that the plans are to raise as
much as KD2 billion from the domestic market and
KD3 billion from global bond markets.
Calculated Kuwaiti Measures
to Handle Oil Price Slump
OAPEC Member Countries
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Volume 42 Issue 10
kuwait