Kuwait on Tuesday announced that its revenue collection has reached a staggering $63.6 billion until February this fiscal. This is the highest revenues ever boasted by Kuwait, which sits on about 10 per cent of global crude reserves and pumps 2.5 million barrels per day, thanks to rocketing oil prices. According to a statement by Kuwait s finance ministry, revenue for the period to the end of February compares with projected income for 2007-08 of about $31 billion and is 18.2 percent up on the same period of the previous fiscal year.Oil revenues jumped 17.6 percent to about $60 billion over the 11 months. The figures reflect a sharp rise in the price of oil, which contributes around 94 percent of total revenue in Kuwait, OPEC s fourth largest producer. Kuwait has adopted a conservative price of $36 a barrel in calculating oil revenues but the price of Kuwaiti oil on Monday touched a record high of $98.85 a barrel. Meanwhile, Kuwait's Central Bank on Thursday raised the value of the dinar by 0.78 percent against the flagging US Dollar after the US currency hit a new record low against the euro. It was the second largest raise since the Dinar was de-pegged from the US Dollar in May last year. In July 2007, the dinar rose 1.75 percent against the US dollar. Last May Kuwait became the first Gulf Arab state to peg its dinar to a basket of currencies after more than four years of linking it to the dollar, in a bid to reduce inflation. Since then, the dinar has gained 6.93 percent against the US Dollar and is trading at a 20-year high. But the inflation rate has kept rising despite the measure. According to the latest Central Bank figures inflation hit a 15-year high of 7.3 percent at the end of September. The figures said the overall inflation came from price rises in products and services, notably housing (12.5 percent), education and health (12.3 percent), beverage and tobacco (9.6 percent), transport (7.3 percent), clothing (5.1 percent), food products (4.8 percent) and other products and services (2.5 percent). Last October, Central Bank Governor Sheikh Salem Abdel Aziz Al-Sabah stated that the decoupling of the Kuwait dinar from the US dollar had helped the Gulf emirate reduce its inflation rate initially but he stressed that it was premature to judge the long term impact this would have on Kuwait's economy and inflation. __
