Kuwait posts preliminary $20bn budget surplus

Kuwait posted a preliminary budget surplus of 6.09 billion dinars ($20.89 billion) in the 2008/09 fiscal year on higher-than-expected oil revenue, official data showed on Monday.

Revenue in the world's seventh-largest oil exporter hit 21.13 billion dinars in the year to March 31, compared with a forecast of 12.68 billion dinars at the start of the fiscal year, according to finance ministry data.

Expenditure stood at 15.04 billion dinars, down from an earlier forecast of 18.97 billion dinars, the data showed.

Final figures are expected to be posted by July as some ministries are often late reporting actual spending.

Oil revenues were 19.88 billion dinars, a 70.6 percent increase over a budget forecast of 11.65 billion dinars, due to high oil prices in the first half of the year, the data showed.

Kuwait has assumed its crude, the country's main revenue earner, would fetch $50 a barrel in the year to end-March. Kuwaiti crude was trading at $51.16 on Friday, after peaking at $135 in July.

Kuwait invests 10 percent of its revenues in a fund for future generations, which is managed by the OPEC producer's sovereign wealth fund. After the payment, the surplus amounts to 3.98 billion dinars, the data shows.

The Gulf Arab state is due to cut expenditures to 12.05 billion dinars in the 2009/10 fiscal year, the head of parliament's budget committee said in February.
The new budget may be based on an oil price of $35 a barrel, after a fall in crude prices amid a global economic slowdown.

Kuwait posted a surplus of 9.32 billion dinars in 2007/08. (Reuters)

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