Deficit in Kuwait's budget shows need for new laws on international loans

Kuwaiti government sources said that the continuing reduction in petroleum prices will lead to increasing the deficit in the general budget and the need for loans from locally and internationally.

Minister of Finance Sheikh Ali Salem said that the need to borrow became essential to control the liquidity and outflow of funds in the country, where the situation imposes an urgent need to draft needed laws and procedures that would facilitate international loans.

The $145.51 billion Kuwaiti budget from July 1998 to June 1999 contains a net deficit amounting to 1.919 billion dinars ($6.4 billion) and a total deficit amounting to 2.163 billion dinars.