KUWAIT CITY: Opec member Kuwait is expected to post a budget surplus of 9.75 billion Kuwaiti dinars ($34.14bn) in its 2009/10 fiscal year if oil prices remain at current levels, reports said yesterday.


The world’s fourth-largest oil exporter is expected to post about 5.5bn dinars for the next five months of the fiscal 2009/10 that ends in March, finance ministry sources said.


Current oil prices at around $80 a barrel will drive up the surplus of the Gulf state, which has assumed its crude, the main revenue earner, would fetch $35 a barrel in its 2009/10 budget.


Kuwait posted a budget surplus of 2.74bn dinars in its 2008/09 fiscal year, on higher oil revenues.