saudi arabia projects $53bn budget deficit

According to a cabinet statement, the shortfall was predicated in the 2017 state budget released on Thursday.

Next year, Saudi expenses will reach $237 billion against revenues of $184 billion, the statement read.

It further noted that the 2016 deficit will stand at $79 billion, down 8.9 percent from an earlier estimate.

“This budget comes at a time of a highly volatile economic situation … which led to a slowdown in world economic growth and a drop in oil prices that impacted our country,” Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud told on official television at a cabinet meeting.

Earlier this month, King Salman acknowledged that some of the economic measures adopted by the government are “painful,” but they are needed to avert more complicated financial woes.

The developments come amid the country’s rising military expenditure, a large amount of which is being funneled into a military campaign against neighboring Yemen. 

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 with the purpose of reinstalling the country’s former government, a close Riyadh ally.