{"id":26162,"date":"2018-12-19T19:23:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T19:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=26162"},"modified":"2018-12-19T19:23:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T19:23:20","slug":"saudi-arabia-comfortable-with-oil-prices-finance-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=26162","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia ‘comfortable’ with oil prices, finance minister says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Saudi Arabia’s finance minister said on Wednesday he wasn’t concerned about current oil prices impacting spending plans in 2019 as money from an anti-corruption drive will bring in billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Mohammed al-Jadaan told Reuters news agency that cash settlements from an anti-corruption campaign – which generated 50 billion Saudi riyals ($13.3bn) in 2018 – would net “not significantly less” in 2019.<\/p>\n

Authorities have said they expect to confiscate $100bn overall from a purge of princes, ministers, and business tycoons ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in November 2017.<\/p>\n

Under an ambitious reform plan aimed at ending the top oil exporter’s dependence on crude, Riyadh is seeking to balance its budget by 2023.<\/p>\n

The government unveiled a $295bn budget<\/a> on Tuesday, the kingdom’s largest, with a seven percent increase in state spending to spur economic growth and a projected deficit of 4.2 percent of GDP.<\/p>\n

“We are still targeting 2023, but what I’m saying is we need to realise that it is not set in stone,” Jadaan said. “What’s the point of having a balanced budget on ’23 specifically? It could be 22, it could be 24. We want to be disciplined, we want to be efficient and pro-growth.”<\/p>\n

Asked about the impact of lower oil prices on spending, Jadaan said: “Until today we are comfortable” and “even in the worst case scenario we are still relatively comfortable” given the kingdom’s significant reserves and low debt to GDP ratio.<\/p>\n

The interview took place at Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where suspects in the corruption sweep were held for up to three months.<\/p>\n

Jadaan said seized assets were being managed and valued by a ministry-owned company, Istidama, which is managed by a committee chaired by the commerce minister and has no connection to the sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Reuters news agency<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia’s finance minister said on Wednesday he wasn’t concerned about current oil prices impacting spending plans in 2019 as money from an anti-corruption drive will bring in billions of dollars. Mohammed al-Jadaan told Reuters news agency that cash settlements from an anti-corruption campaign – which generated 50 billion Saudi riyals ($13.3bn) in 2018 -…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":26163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}