Economics
Saudi Budget's Estimate for Oil Is Seen as ‘Wishful Thinking’
- Budget defies ‘laws of arithmetic:’ Bloomberg’s Ziad Daoud
- Government sees budget deficit for 2019 at 4.2 percent of GDP
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Some analysts say Saudi Arabia’s 2019 revenue forecast is surprising because they estimate it to be based on a relatively high price of oil.
The plan defies “the laws of arithmetic,” said Ziad Daoud, the Dubai-based chief Middle East economist at Bloomberg Economics. The government’s projections may be based on a crude price as high as $80 a barrel in 2019, and it would have to climb to $95 a barrel to balance the budget, he said. Brent crude traded near $56 a barrel on Wednesday.