State Council refers 2019 budget to Ministers Council

Muscat: The State Council referred the draft state budget for the fiscal year 2019 to the Council of Ministers accompanied by the recommendations of the State Council and Majlis A'Shura.  The State Council has held its second regular session of the fourth annual sitting of the sixth term under the chair of Dr Yahya bin Mahfoudh al Manthri, Chairman of the State Council and discussed the report of the expanded economic committee of the State Council on the draft budget.  It also discussed the introduction of amendments to the draft budget in light of the discussions of the session.

Honourable Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdullah al Harthy, Chairman of the Economic Committee at the State Council delivered a statement of the expanded economic committee on the draft budget for the fiscal year 2019 and reviewed the committee's views which covered six themes.

He said that the committee believed that

it is important to focus on the macro-economic policies to know the

development effects of the rise or the decrease of such figures during

the audit of the financial performance indicators.  He said that it is

also important to ensure consistency between items of the budget and the

expected outcomes as per the defined objectives at the draft budget –

which are in line with the aims of the 9th five-year plan.

He pointed out that the performance indicators for the 2018 budget have shown improvement in some financial sustainability indicators due to the decline in the rate of deficit to the GDP and the improvement of some financial indicators. --ONA