The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud addressed the nation, announcing the budget of the Fiscal Year 1439-1440 AH, as the largest expenditure budget through the history of the Kingdom, based on low oil price levels compared to previous years, in order to continue development and enhancement process towards achieving the Kingdom Vision 2030, that aims at increasing the size of the national economy and sustain its growth, through diversification of economic base, sources of income and the capacity to adapt with developments and overcoming challenges. The King said that dozens of programs have been launched to realize the goals of diversifying the economic base and empower the private sector to play a major role, in sustaining expenditure efficiency, in order to realize appropriate economic growth rates, mitigate the burden on the citizens and tackle possible impacts, in addition to supporting the private sector. The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques hailed achievements related to decreasing the deficit of the budget of the current fiscal year that exceeded 25% compared to the last fiscal year, despite increasing the expenditure, adding that the target is to decrease the deficit of the next year budget to be lesser than 8% of the Gross Domestic Product, in spite of the great and expansionary volume of the budget. The King stated that government programs have managed to downsize depending on oil to about 50%, adding that the development funds and the General Investments Fund take part in the capital and investment expenditure, with portions that exceeded capital expenditure volume, in the budgets of previous years, in addition to government keeping leading with capital expenditure, at an increase of 13%. -- more 18:21 LOCAL TIME 15:21 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w568215