Kuwait Posts 4.8 Billion Dollar Surplus In Last Fiscal Year

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - Oil-rich Kuwait posted an actual surplus of 4.8 billion dollars in the 2003/2004 fiscal year that ended March 31, its fifth consecutive windfall, on the back of high oil prices and output, a specialist report said.
Initial figures had put the surplus at 2.23 billion dinars (7.5 billion dollars), but an upward adjustment of expenditures reduced the figure, according to the independent Al-Shall Economic Consultants.
The OPEC member finished the last fiscal year with actual expenditures at 5.52 billion dinars (18.7 billion dollars), up from the pre-adjustment figure of 4.7 billion dinars (15.9 billion dollars), it said.
Upward adjustments in Kuwait's expenditures are common to account for spending by government institutions in the last fiscal month which does not automatically appear in state accounts.
Actual spending was seven percent down on budget estimates of 5.94 billion dinars (20.1 billion dollars).
Actual revenues came in at 6.94 billion dinars (23.5 billion dollars), the highest since 1979, with oil revenues at 20.8 billion dollars and non-oil income at 2.7 billion dollars, the report said.
Revenues were almost 95 percent higher than budget projections of 11.85 billion dollars. The majority of the increase was attributed to the hike in oil income which soared 79 percent over budget estimates.
Oil income contributes around 90 percent of total public revenues.
The average price of Kuwaiti oil during the year was 26.9 dollars a barrel, compared with the 15-dollar figure used to calculate the budget.
According to law, 10 percent of total revenues, 2.3 billion dollars in this case, is placed in the Kuwait Fund for Future Generations (KFFG), a state reserve fund managed by the state-run Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA).
KFFG is estimated to be worth more than 70 billion dollars, most of it in overseas investments.
Based on official statements and economic reports, the emirate has been producing almost to full output capacity of 2.5 million barrels per day.
Kuwait posted a surplus of 4.3 billion dollars in 2002/2003, recording revenues of 20.7 billion dollars and expenditures of 16.4 billion dollars.
It has projected a deficit of 10.1 billion dollars for the current 2004/2005 fiscal year, which started on April 1, based on the assumption of a substantial slide in oil revenues.
Expenditures are projected at 6.30 billion dinars (21.35 billion dollars) while revenues are estimated at 3.32 billion dinars (11.25 billion dollars).
But available data indicates that the emirate is heading for its sixth consecutive surplus.
According to Al-Shall, Kuwait has earned some 11.5 billion dollars in oil income in the first five months of the current fiscal year, exceeding revenue estimates for the whole year.
Between 1990 and 1999, the emirate incurred accumulated deficits of 21.1 billion dinars (70 billion dollars) and managed a surplus of 63.2 million dinars (210.1 million dollars) only in the 1996/1997 fiscal year.
However, more than 61 percent of the total deficits came in the first two years of the last decade to finance the US-led Gulf War to liberate Kuwait from seven months of Iraqi occupation.