The finance ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain praised the positive results of Bahrain’s fiscal balance program, which decreased the deficit by 37.8 percent in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period last year, and increased non-oil revenues by 47 percent over the same period.
Bahrain’s Finance Minister Sheikh Salman bin Khalifa met on Friday with Nayef Al-Hajraf, Kuwait’s Finance minister, Obaid Al-Tayer, UAE State Minister for Financial Affairs and Abdulaziz al-Rasheed, Saudi Arabia’s assistant minister of finance for international finance and financial policies.
The participants reviewed the results of the implementation of the Fiscal Balance Program initiatives launched in October 2018 with the aim of achieving a balance between government expenditures and revenues by 2022.
The ministers praised the positive results attained since the launch of the program, due to the firm determination to thoroughly implement all of its initiatives.
They also underscored the evaluation carried out by the Arab Monetary Fund, which emphasized significant progress towards reaching the balance point by 2022.
