The sovereign credit ratings on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia primarily reflect the government's strong external and fiscal positions. Driven by high oil receipts over the past few years and the cautious approach of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) towards foreign reserves management, foreign reserves and liquid foreign assets managed by the SAMA stood at $438 billion at year-end 2008 (up 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. We expect fiscal outturns to weaken in 2009, in line with falling oil prices and revenues, and the government's deliberate countercyclical expansionary fiscal
