(Reuters) – Bahrain will add around 177 million dinars ($470 million) to its 2020 state budget in emergency spending on fighting the new coronavirus pandemic, state news agency BNA said on Monday, reporting a royal decree.
To this end, $450 million will be taken as a one-time deduction from the Future Generations Fund (FGF), a fund set up in 2006 to reinvest hydrocarbon revenues, and allocated to this year’s state budget, another new decree said.
The decrees also announced a temporary halt to the allocation of oil revenues to the FGF until the end of 2020.
The small oil producing Gulf state was bailed out in 2018 with a $10 billion aid package from wealthy Gulf neighbours to avoid a credit crunch and has been working to plug its budget deficit.
Bahrain has reported just under 33,000 cases of infection with the coronavirus and 108 deaths.
(Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Toby Chopra, William Maclean)
