International Monetary Fund: half of Arab countries' public debt exceeds 90%

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has declared that the public debt of half of the Arab countries now exceeds 90% of GDP, warning against a rapid increase due to the continuous increase in the budget deficit since the global financial crisis of 2008.

The director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said in a statement to the French news agency during the fourth forum of public finances in Dubai that the persistent deficit led to an increase in public debt in the Arab countries.

"Unfortunately, the region has not yet fully recovered from the global financial crisis and the major economic upheavals of the past decade," Lagarde said.

Economic growth has improved only in oil-importing countries, but it remains below pre-crisis levels: public debt of Arab oil-importing countries rose from 64% of GDP in 2008 85% in 2018.

She warned that the next economic path in the region would be fraught with difficulties, calling on oil-exporting countries to use renewable energy in the coming years, in line with the Paris Convention on Climate Change, which provides for the reduction of harmful emissions for the environment.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund lowered its economic growth forecast for Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, and for the Middle East and North Africa region, due falling oil prices, production and geopolitical tensions.

Saudi Arabia's public debt rose 24 percent at the same time as oil prices, despite a narrowing of the budget deficit in the first nine months of 2018, by 59.7 percent over the latest period of 2017.

The Ministry of Finance said in a statement that the budget deficit until the end of the third quarter of 2018 amounted to 49 billion riyals ($ 13.1 billion), compared with 121.1 billion riyals ($ 32.4 billion) during the corresponding period of last year.

Public debt reached 549.516 billion riyals (146.53 billion dollars) in late September, against 443.253 billion riyals (118.2 billion dollars) at the end of 2017, according to the Saudi Ministry.