KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s government announced plans to spend 45.5 billion dinars ($155 billion) on projects over the next five years despite the plunge in world oil prices here the other day, a lawmaker said.
The spending is slated to cover 523 key projects in a five-year development plan starting in the fiscal year which begins on April 1, said parliament’s financial and economic affairs committee secretary, Mohammad al-Jabri. He said the oil-rich Gulf country’s state minister for planning and development, Hind al-Sabeeh, discussed the draft development plan with his panel.
The committee was assured that the sharp drop in oil revenues would not affect the projects of Kuwait, which has a massive sovereign wealth fund and invested billions of dollars in a “future generations fund”.
Oil revenues in the new budget from April will be calculated on the basis of $45 a barrel, down from $75 a barrel in the current fiscal year, Jabri said. The price of Kuwaiti oil closed on $43.21 a barrel on Friday, compared to a price of over $110 a barrel in June 2014. Oil income makes up around 94 per cent of public revenues in Kuwait.
