The Saudi ruler, King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, approved the budget of 2018 as the largest budget for spending in the history of the Kingdom at low oil prices, at 978 billion riyals during an unscheduled session of the Council of Ministers.
The King said midst his speech, “12 programs were launched to achieve the objectives of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 in diversifying the economic base and enabling the private sector to play a bigger role while maintaining the efficiency of spending,” pointing out that “budget deficit was cut during the current fiscal year, by more than 25 %, compared to the previous year, despite the high spending.”
King Salman confirmed that, “the government programs have succeeded in reducing the dependence on oil, to reach about 50 %.” Noting that “it is the first time that the Development Funds and the Public Investment Fund in the capital expenditure and investment in excess of the volume of capital expenditure from the budget in previous years, In addition to the continuation of the government in capital spending and increasing it by 13%.”