RIYADH: The Saudi sovereign fund is planning to issue international green bonds in the near future, Asharq reported, citing Hani Al-Medaini, the head of the National Debt Management Center, which is responsible for managing the Kingdom’s sovereign borrowing. This comes as the Saudi government plans to enter the sustainable financing markets and use green bonds as a financing channel to expand funding sources, said the Acting CEO of NDMC. To achieve this, consultants have been appointed to back the Kingdom in creating a framework for sustainable financing, he added. Oil driving economy The rise in oil production and prices in 2021 has bolstered Saudi Arabia’s financial conditions, helping it achieve a budget surplus of SR6.7 billion ($1.79 billion) in the third quarter of 2021. It represented the first quarterly surplus in two years, he revealed. American credit rating agency Fitch has announced that the Saudi Public Investment Fund may resort to the debt markets “gradually.” Whereas, Moody’s has raised its outlook for Saudi Arabia to "stable" and affirmed the credit rating. The International Monetary Fund has raised its estimates of the growth rate of the Saudi economy by 2.8 percentage points, as it expects the Kingdom’s GDP to grow by 7.6 percent in 2022, compared to a growth of 3.2 percent in 2021.