(MENAFN) Kuwait's Finance Ministry said that it projects that the country will register a USD24 billion deficit in its new fiscal year budget despite the massive cut in spending as the result of the continuous global plunge in oil prices, Gulf Daily News reported.
The Ministry said that the country is expected to post USD41.1 billion in revenue during the 2015-2016 fiscal year, a 43.6 percent decline compared with its estimate for the current fiscal year, adding that the current budget has cut spending to USD65.1 billion, declining by 17.8 percent compared to the current budget.
Kuwait, an OPEC member which heavily relies on its oil income, said that the budget for the new fiscal year, which starts April 1, has been approved, adding that despite predicting a budget deficit in the past 15 fiscal years, it has ended up with a healthy surplus each year due to high oil prices, though it does not expect the same for this year after oil prices lost almost 60 percent of their value since starting to decline in June.
Kuwait, which pumps about 3.0 million barrels of oil per day, added that the expected oil income for the next fiscal year will be calculated on the basis of 45 a barrel, down from this year's 75 a barrel, adding that it has no plans to plans to cut wages and allocations for development projects in the country.
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