The government is preparing to pass the public debt law soon to finance some or all of the financial deficits, Al-Rai daily reported.
As part of the practical steps, the government formed a committee to draft the law, which is expected to be submitted soon. The financing targets would be in line with the requirements of the current situation.
The sources told the daily that there is consensus within the committee that the public debt ceiling in the upcoming project will be set at about KD 24 billion. This is an increase from the KD 20 billion that was presented in the past.
The committee’s approach is based on setting the public debt ceiling at 60% of the GDP, whose estimated value at constant prices in 2019 amounted to about KD 40 billion, noting that this year was based on the assumption that 2020 is an exceptional year.
The Council of Ministers considered all the available options to deal with the risks of running out of liquidity and concluded the need to expedite the approval of the Public Debt Law, prompted by the reports submitted by the concerned authorities about the extent of the damage caused by the delay in its approval.
The sources confirmed that there is more than one reason to pass the law shortly, most notably the deficit for the last fiscal year reached KD 10.8 billion, which is the largest financial deficit for Kuwait in terms of GDP since the early nineties.