The oil-rich emirate of Kuwait said Monday it planned to reappraise multi-billion-dollar foreign investments in light of a huge increase in oil revenues on the back of rocketing crude prices.
The new strategy will aim to "boost performance of Kuwaiti investments in some markets, restructure it in others and enter into new investments," Saleh al-Falah, managing director of Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), told Al-Watan newspaper.
Falah said the strategy's "main guidelines" would be ready in November.
His statements follow declarations by Kuwait's cabinet Sunday that it would use the surplus from the increase in oil revenues "to develop state financial reserves and strengthen capital expenditure to build the national economy."
An independent think-tank, Al-Shall Economic Consultants, has estimated the emirate's earnings from oil in July and August at 967 million dinars ($3.15 billion), half of the estimated oil income for the current year.
Based on unofficial figures, Kuwait made a surplus in excess of one billion dinars ($3.25 billion) in the fiscal year which ended on June 30, the first real surplus in 15 years.
Oil revenues in 2000/2001, estimated at 1.927 billion dinars ($6.3 billion), were calculated on the basis of a conservative $13 a barrel at a daily production of 1.98 million barrels.
The average oil price in the first two months of the 2000/2001 nine-month fiscal year was $26.5 a barrel, while Kuwait's output quota was raised to 2.101 million barrels per day (bpd) after OPEC increased daily output by 800,000 bpd on September 10 to check prices from highs not seen since the 1991 Gulf War.
KIA, Kuwait's investment arm, is running investments estimated at more than $60 billion, down from more than $100 billion it managed before the 1990 Iraqi invasion of the emirate. — (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
