Kuwaiti Finance Minister Step Down

Kuwaiti Minister of Finance Khalifa Hamada has offered his resignation to the Prime Minister today, Al Qabas paper reported. This resignation comes just two days after the Cabinet's announcement of a set of government measures on Monday, aimed at reducing expenditures and filling the deficit.

The Kuwaiti cabinet assigned the Public Authority for Manpower to study the extent to which it is possible to stop disbursing national labor support for workers in the private sector for those whose total salary reaches 3,000 Kuwaiti dinars (~US$10,000) or more. Last week, the finance ministry recorded its highest financial deficit ever amounting to 10.6 billion Kuwaiti dinars (US$35.332 billion).