The ratings on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia primarily reflect the government's rapidly strengthening external and fiscal positions. Driven by record oil receipts, foreign reserves and liquid foreign assets managed by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) have increased markedly in recent years, and are expected to top $430 billion by year-end 2008 (from $136 billion in 2004), which is sufficient to cover about 33 months of current account payments (including private transfers). Furthermore, the central government has no external debt and has no plans to incur any. Overall, Saudi Arabia is expected to have a net external asset position of 125% of GDP by year-end 2008. Saudi Arabia's fiscal position has also strengthened considerably. The general government surplus averaged
