Saudi Arabia’s budget surplus grew to 77.9 billion riyals ($21 billion) in the second quarter. The country reported a revenue of 370 billion riyals ($98 billion), compared to an expenditure of 292.46 billion riyals (more than $77.7 billion).
This Saudi surplus was achieved as a result of the sharp increase in oil prices, which surpassed $100 per barrel. It is the highest quarterly surplus since the Ministry of Finance began announcing the budget quarterly in early 2016.
According to the Ministry, non-oil revenues amounted to 120 billion riyals ($31 billion) in the second quarter, in addition to 10.2 billion riyals ($2.714 billion) in income taxes, profits, and capital gains. Another 64 billion riyals ($17 billion) (SAR 64 billion) were earned through tax revenues on goods and services and 19 billion riyals ($5 billion) through other taxes.
Other revenues totaled 20.2 billion riyals ($5.322 billion) in the second quarter of 2022, according to the Saudi budget.
The Saudi budget surplus exceeded 135 billion riyals (more than $35 billion) in the first half of 2022 – including 57.5 billion riyals ($15 billion) in Q1 2022 and 77.9 billion riyals ($20.49 billion) in Q2 of 2022.
The H1 2022 revenue saw an increase of 43 percent to 648.3 billion riyals ($172.443 billion) compared to 452.8 billion riyals (more than $120 billion) in the same period in 2021.
Saudi also reported an expenditure of about 292.4 billion riyals (more than $77 billion) during the same time period, a 16 percent increase.
Saudi budget figures revealed that expenditures for the first half of 2022 totaled 512.9 billion riyals (more than 136 billion dollars), up from 464.9 billion riyals (more than 123 billion dollars) in the same period of 2021, a 10 percent increase.
