Muscat: Oman's budget surplus widened to 711.6 million riyals (Dh6.75 billion) in January-April, helped by higher oil prices, economy ministry data showed Sunday.
Most Gulf Arab states were expected to run comfortable budget surpluses and continue to raise spending this year as higher oil prices help recovery in the world's top crude exporting region.
Oman booked a surplus of 100.9 million riyals in the same period a year ago and 421.2 million in the first quarter of this year.
The sultanate's revenue jumped 41.9 per cent to 2.940 billion riyals in the four months to the end of April from a year ago, while expenditures rose 13.0 per cent to 2.228 billion, the data showed.
Over the same period, Oman's net oil income doubled to 1.989 billion riyals from 999.0 million a year ago.
"I expect Oman ... to even make a small overall surplus for the year with the expected strong oil prices to prevail this year," Muscat Capital Investments Sa'adoon Fayed said.
The non-Opec country sold its oil at an average price of $75.98 a barrel in January-April, up 70.4 per cent from the same period of 2009.
US oil prices fell more than two per cent to $73.78 a barrel on Friday.
This was due to an unexpected fall in May retail sales in the United States and easing industrial output in China revived concerns about the economy and oil demand.
Oman based its 2010 budget on a projected oil price of $50 a barrel and expected a deficit of 800 million riyals.
Analysts polled by Reuters expected the country to post a surplus of 3.8 per cent of gross domestic product in 2010.
