Subsidies redirection to save BD631 million

Manama : Over BD600 million is the estimated total revenues of the redirection of subsidies, said Finance Minister Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa.

This came within the Minister’s reply to a parliamentary query in regards to the credit rating of the Kingdom.

Shaikh Ahmed said, “BD631.6m is the expected revenue by the end of the gradual implantation of subsidies redirection.”

The Minister also revealed that BD562.3m is the income expected from the reduction of government authorities’ spending, while BD217.9m is expected from developing non-oil revenues.

“Finance Ministry is implementing a set of initiatives and programmes to rationalise government spending and to increase public revenues. In addition, new initiatives that include job openings, diversifying the economic foundation and improving productivity is expected to pump an additional BD79.6m into the incomes of the country,” he stated.

The Minister will discuss his response before the MPs during their upcoming weekly meeting on Tuesday. His reply will include more details about the international credit rating of Bahrain’s economy.  

As reported earlier, Bahrain’s government has taken several steps recently to cut spending, such as merging government authorities and scrapping subsidies.

Subsidised commodities like meat, gasoline, diesel, kerosene, electricity and water were redirected to benefit certain categories, mainly Bahraini citizens.