Riyadh, (Business News Report)|| Government spending in the Gulf states has decreased by 2% during the first quarter of this year 2022, compared to the same quarter of last year.
Saudi Arabia ranked first in government spending of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries this year, at 58%, with about $254.7 billion.
Kuwait ranked second, with government spending of $71.8 billion, constituting 16.3% of the total.
Qatar’s budget ranked third, with government spending of $56.1 billion, constituting 12.8% of the total Gulf spending, this year. Oman’s government spending came $31.3 billion, representing 7.1% of the total spending in GCC.
The UAE’s government spending came $16 billion, representing 3.7%. Bahrain came sixth with government spending of $9.4 billion, representing 2.1%.
According to data from the Al-Eqtisadiah Saudi newspaper published yesterday, government spending within the budgets of the six Gulf states amounted to $439.4 billion, a decrease of nearly 2% from 2021 levels of $447.1 billion.
The data showed that, last December, Saudi Arabia announced the fifth largest budget in its history for 2022, with expenditures amounting to 955 billion riyals, but it is less by 3.5% (35 billion riyals) ($9.333 billion) than the 2021 budget, which amounted to 990 billion riyals.
The data showed a decrease in spending in Kuwait’s budget for 2022 by 5.7% from 2021, which amounts to $76.1 billion. Spending in Qatar’s budget 2022 increased by 4.9% from 2021, which amounts to $53.5 billion.
Spending in Oman’s 2022 budget rose, according to the data, by 11.2% from 2021, amounting to $28.2 billion, and spending in the UAE’s 2022 budget increased by 1.5% from 2021, amounting to $15.8 billion.
As for Bahrain, its spending for 2022 decreased by 1.7% from 2021, which amounted to $9.5 billion.
Government spending in the Gulf countries has risen, like the countries of the world, during the past two years due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
