Media Centre

Bahrain: Budget deficit ‘falls by 83%’

Bahrain - The total deficit in the state’s national budget has fallen by 83 per cent from 2021 to 2024, Bahrain Institute for Political Development (BIPD) affirmed.

Transferring budgets allocated for projects went down from 43pc in 2022 to 14pc in 2023, a workshop on the budget organised by BIPD at Parliament revealed.

The non-oil sector’s contribution to public revenues went up by 12pc in 2023 and 2024.

Money collected by the National Bureau for Revenue also increased from BD603 million to around BD640m, the workshop has shown, according to a report in our Arabic sister paper Akhbar Al Khaleej.

The conclusions of the workshop showed a surplus in the national budget if the expenditures of the public debt interests, which exceeded BD750m, were excluded.

The budget surplus was about BD246m in 2023 and BD626.6m in 2024.

The non-oil sector constituted 86.4pc of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2024, and there was a continuous increase in loans, which raised the public debt to more than BD17m in 2023, the study showed.

Consequently, the cost of the public debt service kept rising until it reached more than BD840m in 2023, and the inflation rate stood at about 3pc.

The actual expenditures on social assistance also increased by 22pc of the approved budget, and the actual disbursement of food subsidies rose by 31pc.

The workshop spotlighted the main challenges facing the government in implementing its programme and their repercussions on the next budget 2025-2026.

It cited issues like oil price fluctuation, improving the living standard, employing citizens, digital transformation and achieving the goals of the fiscal balance programme.

It included conclusions regarding the economic indicators and their connection with the 2025-2026 budget and urged to exercise caution to achieve balance between sound financial management and strategic sovereign borrowing.

It also called to work on developing the artificial intelligence infrastructure and cybersecurity by upgrading legislation.