Kuwait may post $34 billion budget surplus 2009/10

Opec member Kuwait is expected to post a budget surplus of 9.75 billion dinars ($34.14 billion) in its 2009/10 fiscal year if oil prices remain at current levels, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
The world's fourth-largest oil exporter is expected to post about 5.5 billion dinars for the next five months of the fiscal 2009/10 that ends in March, daily newspaper Awan said, citing sources in Kuwait's Ministry of Finance.
Current oil prices at around $80 a barrel, the paper said, will drive up the surplus of the Gulf Arab state, which has assumed its crude, the main revenue earner, would fetch $35 a barrel in its 2009/10 budget. Kuwait has logged a budget surplus of 4.25 billion dinars in the first five months of its 2009/10 fiscal year on higher than forecast oil revenue, official data showed earlier this month.