Saudi Arabia's foreign assets surged by more than SR67.14 billion in December last year at SR1,570.65 billion compared to SR1,503.51 billion in November, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) said in its December bulletin released on Wednesday. In January 2009, assets stood at SR1,681.3 billion. Assets hit record high of SR1,709.9 billion at the end of 2008. But for the whole of 2009, SAMA's foreign assets dipped by nearly 8.1 percent. The assets had steadily declined through 2009, except in October when assets gained around SR31 billion, apparently as oil prices averaged around $72.6 a barrel compared with only about $40 in the first quarter. Banque Saudi Fransi forecast that SAMA's assets could climb by nearly 14 percent through 2010 due to an expected increase in oil prices. “As for this year, our expectations are that growth in those assets will outpace growth in the Kingdom's nominal GDP. We believe the government will continue to support the expansionary public spending program but since oil revenues are projected to rise, we expect those assets to increase by 14 percent to reach nearly SR1.67 trillion at end-2010.” The bulk of the increase in December was in SAMA's deposits with banks abroad, jumping by around SR57 billion to SR335.6 billion at the end of December from SR268.9 billion at the end of November. Investment in foreign securities slipped to SR1,071.5 billion from SR1,075.1 billion in the same period but this was offset by a rise of around SR10 billion in notes.
