Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday its state budget of 2021 with a deficit of 141bn riyals ($37.6bn).

A royal decree approved by the cabinet on Tuesday estimated the revenues at 849 billion riyals and the expenditures at 990 billion riyals, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud told the cabinet that the kingdom was affected, like the rest of the world, by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said that the budget aims to protect the health and safety of the kingdom’s citizens and residents and to continue eliminating the effects of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry highlighted to the cabinet that the preliminary estimates for 2021 predicted the real GDP growth at about 3.2 percent, under the assumption that economic activities will continue to recover during the year.