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our view. This would thus imply that fiscal consolidation is likely to fall short of
narrowing imbalances materially without a sustained oil price recovery.
The fees on excess foreign worker quotas and the green-card like program targeted
proceeds are difficult to reach, in our view. We calculate that to raise US$10bn from a
green-card like program, authorities will need to set the program fees at US$1,500 (in
line with upper bound of similar programs elsewhere) and have all expatriate workers
applying to enrol in the program. This appears an unrealistic target to meet, particularly
as it is not clear how these proceeds would be recurrent yearly. As for the foreign
worker quotas proceeds, we calculate that, based on private sector expatriate figures
and the stated 85% overall compliance with Nitaqat sector quotas, that the fees would
need to be set at a large cUSS10,500 per non-compliant worker to be consistent with
the NTP target. The large fee amount would likely be a material disincentive to private
sector corporates and a squeeze on their profits.
One of the obstacles to meeting the subsidy reform target is likely to be political in
nature given the impact on inflation and household incomes. We calculate nevertheless
that the target could be reached through a combination of a administered prices
changes. We do not think there is major room to increase natural gas feedstock prices
to petrochemical firms, given the NTP focus on the petrochemical sector as a source of
future growth. We estimate raising natural gas prices to US spot levels in an oil price
environment of US$50/bblI would bring in revenues to the central government of just
US$2.5bn (0.4% of GDP) if fully passed to the budget. This is likely to suggest that the
bulk of the future adjustments are likely to center on hikes to administered price
adjustments for domestic crude oil sales, diesel and gasoline. Selling domestic crude at
US$25/bbl rather than an average of US$5.4/bbl would bring in US$20.8bn in revenues.
Gasoline and diesel prices could rise by the same percentage as in December 2015 to
bring in additional revenues for a minimum inflation pick-up cost of O.5ppt.
The most difficult part would be meeting the US$40bn in other non-oil revenues target,
in our view. Given that the latter’s breakdown was not provided, we have attempted to
group several measures being studied (according to local press) to provide a tentative
decomposition. Still, our analysis suggests the need for a further US$16.8-US$20.7bn in
financing to meet the US$40bn target. Land tax proceeds of US$11bn in the first phase
of implementation are the largest item, in our view. We calculate that a 20% sin tax on
tobacco and sugary drinks would raise US$2.1bn (0.3% of GDP) at a O.5ppt cost to
inflation. A remittance tax being studied, according to local press, and could impose a
tax of 6% gradually decline to 2% over a number of years. At the upper bound of the tax
rate (6%), we calculate that the remittance tax would raise US$2.3bn (0.4% of GDP). We
calculate that a 10% income tax on expatriates would raise at least between US$3.9-
USS$7.8bn (0.6-1.2% of GDP), depending on the assumed annual overall expatriate
earnings. That being said, measures to tax expatriates could be detrimental to
diversification and labor force prospects and were opposed to politically in the past.
OS Merrill Lynch GEMs Paper #26 | 30 June 2016 21
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