RIYADH, Nov 28: Saudi Arabia has unveiled its budget for the next year with a total outlay of SR209 billion ($55.7bn) against a revenue target of SR170 billion ($45.3bn), leaving a SR39 billion ($10.4bn) budgetaryy deficit, compared to SR45 billion ($12bn) in the current year (2002).

The government authorized the Finance Ministry to cover the projected gap through borrowing. It is still not clear, if the loans to cover this gap would be sought locally or from foreign financiers.

The Kingdom’s doemstic debt is currently estimated at about $180 billion. The government has recently announced privatization of major public sector firms in more than 20 vital sectors of the economy.

The proceeds from the privatization was expected to go towards retiring some of the domestic debt.

Spelling out the major allocations, the budget document, said a sum of SR57.5 billion was allocated for education sector, SR23.23 for health and social care, SR7.52 billion for municipal affairs, SR6.53 for transport and communication and SR13.85 billion for water, industrial, agricultural and other related projects.

The current account of the country was also reported to have registered a surplus of SR33.7 billion in 2002 compared to SR35.1 billion in 2001.