Saudi Arabia reduced its budget plan for 2021 by 7 percent from this year’s in response to the economic fallout of the pandemic, which pushed oil prices to multi-year lows. Reuters reported that Riyadh will spend some $264 billion next year, or 990 billion riyals, as it battles a substantial deficit resulting from the latest oil price collapse. Earlier this year, the Kingdom was forced by oil market circumstances to implement some unpopular austerity measures, including a triple increase in value-added tax and the cancellation of so-called cost-of-living allowances for much of the population. While the government insisted these were not austerity measures, the fact of the matter was that the drop in oil revenues threatened the economy of OPEC’s number-one exporter. Saudi Arabia expects its 2020 deficit to hit $79.40 billion (298 billion riyals), representing 12 percent of gross domestic product, all because of the drop in oil […]