26 October 2018, News Wires — Saudi Arabia’s third-quarter non-oil revenue jumped 48 percent from the same period last year, to 211 billion riyals ($56.25 billion), its finance minister said on Thursday.
The kingdom, which is working on a number of economic reforms to diversify its oil-reliant economy, had non-oil revenues of 89.4 billion riyals in the second quarter, up 42 percent year on year.
Speaking at an investment conference in Riyadh, Mohammed al-Jadaan said that spending in the third quarter went up by 25 percent.
Saudi Arabia’s government expects to run a budget deficit of 128 billion riyals next year, compared with a 195 billion riyal deficit projected for 2018 in the original budget for this year, Jadaan said last month.
The deficit narrowed to 7.36 billion riyals in the second quarter, with revenue of 273.59 billion riyals and spending of 280.95 billion riyals.
- Reuters
