Saudi Arabia approves state budget of 2013 fiscal year

The Saudi cabinet approved Saturday the budget of 2013 fiscal year with projected total revenues of 221 billion U.S. dollars and expenditures of 218.6 billion dollars, Saudi News Agency reported. The budget plans to reduce the public debt by the end of the current fiscal year to 26.26 billion dollars, compared with 36.1 billion dollars by the end of the 2011 fiscal year. The gross domestic product (GDP) of 2012 is expected to increase by 8.6 percent compared with 2011, according to the report. "The duty and responsibility pushed us to look for the future to make a balance between the requirements of the current generation and the future generations as we should also be responsible for them," Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud told the extraordinary cabinet session.