Saudi cash reserve to reach $800bn in 2014

Saudi Arabia's cash reserve is likely to reach 800 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 as the state budget is showing a surplus of 60 billion U.S. dollars in this year, Al Sharq Al Awsat newspaper said Monday. The current cash reserve, according to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, is 693 billion dollars, which is expected to increase thanks to the surplus and the steady revenues of the oil, the price of which now stands at over 100 dollars per barrel. Salem Baajaja, an accounting professor at Taif University, told Al Sharq Al Awsat that more finance would be dedicated to education, health, infrastructure and housing sectors, and that the public debt reduced to 26.3 billion dollars in 2012 from 36.1 billion in 2011. Most of Saudi Arabia's revenues come from oil exports. Local media reported some 1.96 billion barrels of oil were exported in the first nine months of 2013, worth 213 billion dollars.