Saudi Arabia, its finances hit by low oil prices, announced plans to shrink a record state budget deficit with spending cuts, reforms to energy subsidies and a drive to raise revenues from taxes and privatisation. The 2016 budget, released by the finance ministry on Monday (December 28), marked the biggest shake-up to economic policy in the world’s top crude exporter for over a decade, and includes politically sensitive reforms from which authorities previously shied away. […]





