Saudi Arabia advances 18 ranks in the Open Budget Index

Saudi Arabia advanced 18 ranks within the Open Budget Index (OBI) in 2019, after scoring 18 points compared to 1 point in the previous survey conducted in 2017, according to the results of the international survey that was conducted by the International Budget Partnership, an international non-profit organization concerned with evaluating disclosure and transparency of general budgets worldwide.

Saad Alshahrani, Deputy Minister of Finance for Macro-Fiscal Policies, stated that the survey results show that the Kingdom has achieved a big jump in the budget transparency survey, and reflect the evolution in the availability of information and data in a detailed and periodic manner to the public, while providing clear analysis as required by the benchmarks set in the survey.

Since the launch of the Kingdom's Vision 2030, the ministry has introduced many reports and has continuously developed its content on an annual basis according to best practices, Alshahrani added indicating that the reports address a broad base of specialized recipients and the general public inside and outside the Kingdom.

The Open Budget Index (OBI) is an important global tool, independently prepared every two years to assess the transparency of government budgets around the world. Countries covered by the open budget survey are ranked according to their scores in the survey. The seventh edition of the survey was conducted in 2019 (covering performance FY 2017 & 2018), and included an assessment of 117 countries. The last report issued in 2018 covered performance until 2016