National Bank of Kuwait Lowers Saudi Growth Outlook on Oil Cuts
February 11, 2012, 3:47 AM ESTBy Glen Carey
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- National Bank of Kuwait lowered its forecast for Saudi Arabia’s economic growth this year to 3.8 percent from 5 percent, citing “revised assumptions” for the kingdom’s oil production.
“As Libyan output recovers through 2012, some of these increases may be reversed, not least to rebuild Saudi’s cushion of spare production capacity to enable it to respond to future shocks,” Kuwait’s largest lender said. Saudi Arabia raised production last year by more than 1 million barrels a day to offset a drop in Libyan supplies, the bank said.
Saudi inflation this year is expected to average 5 percent to 6 percent, the bank said in an e-mailed statement.
--Editors: Louis Meixler, Jonas Bergman
To contact the reporter on this story: Glen Carey in Riyadh at gcarey8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
