World Bank: Saudi Arabia is the region’s second lowest country in the ratio of public debt to GDP

The World Bank explained in a recent report entitled “Conflict and Debt in the Middle East and North Africa” that Saudi Arabia comes as the second lowest country in the region in terms of the ratio of debt to GDP by the end of the year 2023, at 26.2%, after Kuwait, which recorded 3.8%.

The quarterly report on the performance of the Saudi budget during the year 2023, which was issued by the Ministry of Finance last February, indicated that the government did not rely on public reserves to finance the budget deficit and relied on internal and external public debt to finance the deficit amounting to about 80.95 billion riyals.

According to the statement, the government obtained about 20.9 billion riyals from internal debt, while 60 billion riyals were obtained through external debt, and no withdrawals were made from government reserves.

The report data showed that the internal debt rose by the end of the year 2023 to record about 644.4 billion riyals, an increase, while the external debt rose to about 405.9 billion riyals, meaning that the total public debt recorded by the end of the year 2023 about 1.05 trillion riyals, for the first time in the history of the Kingdom, approaching About 25% of the gross domestic product, compared to 990 billion riyals, equivalent to 23.8% of the gross domestic product in 2022.