Saudi Arabia has apparently just lost 27 bn Dollar

The slump in oil prices is sapping $ 27.5 billion in oil revenue from Saudi Arabia this year, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Friday, admitting current oil revenues are insufficient to cover the kingdom's salary bills. Saudi Arabia forecast last year that the state's revenue for this year would be $ 222 billion (833 billion Saudi riyals), of which $ 137 billion (513 billion riyals) would come from oil, the said Crown Prince in a speech by the official Saudi press agency. After the collapse in oil prices, however, Saudi Arabia's oil revenues actually fell to 109 billion US dollars (410 billion riyals), said Mohammed bin Salman. The price slump, to which Saudi Arabia itself contributed by flooding the market with oil in April, cost the world's leading oil exporter just over US $ 27.5 billion in oil revenues that year. "Those revenues alone are not even enough to cover the estimated 504 billion riyals of payroll in this year's budget, let alone the difficulty of funding other items, including capital expenditures of 173 billion riyals and social security benefits of 69 billion Billions of riyals as well as operating and maintenance costs of 140 billion riyals and others belong, which means an economic recession and the loss of millions of jobs, "said Mohammed bin Salman in his speech. The collapse in oil prices has forced the kingdom to take some very unpopular measures such as tripling value added tax (VAT), reducing disbursements to poor households and eliminating the cost of living allowances for government employees. Earlier this week, Fitch Ratings revised its outlook for Saudi Arabia's long-term foreign currency issuer default rating (IDR) from "stable" to "negative", citing "the ongoing weakening of its financial and foreign trade balance caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the Lower oil prices accelerated, despite the government's strong commitment to fiscal consolidation ”.