#Saudi's planned spending cut will help achieve balanced budget target: Moody's | ZAWYA MENA Edition

Saudi's planned spending cut will help achieve balanced budget target: Moody's | ZAWYA MENA Edition:

Moody’s Investors Service said that Saudi Arabia’s planned expenditure cuts will support the kingdom’s achievement of its challenging balanced budget objective by 2023.

Saudi had already announced plans to secure a balanced budget by 2023 by closing budget deficit.

The kingdom on Monday released its 2020 budget, indicating expected total expenditure of 1.02 trillion Saudi riyals ($272 billion) compared to a forecast for actual expenditure of 1.048 trillion riyals in 2019.

The budget deficit for 2020 is expected to be at 187 billion riyals (6.4 percent of GDP), while the expected deficit is forecast to reach 131 billion riyals in 2019 (4.7 percent of the estimated 2019 GDP).