Gulf states must raise $ 300 billion by 2021, Standard & Poor's latest information



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The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has to collect about $ 300 billion between 2018 and 2021, the Saudi credit rating agency Standard & Poor's said.

Gulf states are increasingly dependent on external financing after oil prices drop, which has led to huge budget deficits and pushed for radical economic reforms in recent years.

Saudi Arabia has become the world's leading source of international debt, borrowing $ 52 billion in conventional and Islamic bond issues since entering global markets for the first time in late 2016.

On average, S & P plans to raise 70% of the $ 300 billion needed by the countries in the region from debt and the remaining 30% from assets.

Qatar and Bahrain are expected to meet their debt needs almost exclusively while Kuwait and Abu Dhabi will have greater use of their assets.

The rise in oil prices this year and a series of government initiatives to diversify the resources of the region's economies rather than depend on oil revenues have helped to improve budget deficits and curb the buildup of the sovereign debt of the Gulf in 2018.

Standard & Poor's estimates that the total deficit of Arab Gulf governments will reach about $ 75 billion next year, up from $ 190 billion in 2016.

"However, the net debt positions of the GCC governments have deteriorated since the drop in oil prices in 2015 and debt service costs are absorbing a much larger share of the financial income," said L & # 39, agency in a research note.

Standard & Poor's predicts a persistent deficit in the budgets of GCC country governments until 2021.

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