Kuwait has approved $65 billion for infrastructure, health, environment and power projects for the 2021-2022 financial year, with 5 percent of them based on partnerships with the private sector.
The projects include 14 major public projects with a total value of approximately $59bn and four partnership projects worth nearly $3.2bn, the Kuwaiti Alanba newspaper reported, citing official data.
The projects comprise mainly the airport expansion, the Silk City, island development, trans-Kuwait rail network and rail link with nearby Gulf countries, Matla City, and the Clean Fuel Project.
The report showed nearly half the projects cover economic diversification while 16 percent involve infrastructure, and the rest cover health, environment, power and other sectors.
Currently Kuwait is saddled with large debt and political deadlock that are blunting the ability of the country to invest money from its sovereign fund, ultimately stymying the country’s ability to diversify its economy away from oil.
The country’s budget deficit has widened to nearly 29 percent of GDP and is one of the largest globally.
While non-oil GDP is gradually recovering, it is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2022, but the sector is expected to account for the bulk of Kuwait’s anticipated 2.5 percent GDP growth this year, according to the Oxford Economic’s Economic Insight report, commissioned by ICAEW.
It said that in 2021, non-oil growth is expected to reach 3.1 percent, and by 2022 it should hit 4.7 percent.
In June, Kuwait approved a $76bn state budget with a focus on job support as the OPEC member – like other Gulf nations – works to diversify its economy away from oil. Kuwait’s Finance Minister Khalifa Hamade said 71.6 percent of expenditure is allocated for job support, with 15 percent earmarked for development projects, namely infrastructure and residential project.
To help increase spending on health care and education, $630 million has been put towards workers compensation.
According to a report from state news agency KUNA, the budget estimates a revenue of $36bn.
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