Saudi Arabia jumped 18 places in an index that measures the transparency of budgets worldwide as the Kingdom moves forward with economic and social reforms.
The results were presented by the International Budget Partnership, an international non-profit organization, which operates a biennial Open Budget Index (OBI) that tracks governmental transparency in spending.
According to Arab News, the performance of the country in the latest rankings reflected efforts to boost the quality of fiscal data in the Kingdom, citing comments from Saad Alshahrani, deputy minister for macro-fiscal policies. Alshahrani said that the Ministry of Finance had developed its fiscal systems to inform specialists, analysts and citizens in a timely manner and allow the private sector and investors to plan ahead and make informed decisions.
“All of these measures contributed to a material and unprecedented shift in the levels of disclosure and transparency in the Kingdom, leading to an enhanced position on various international indicators and contributing to supporting domestic and foreign investment, as well as the credit rating of the Kingdom,” Alshahrani said.
