Kuwait's gross domestic product contracted 9.9% in 2020, compared with growth of 0.4% in 2019, mainly because of last year's sharp drop in oil prices, state news agency KUNA reported on Sunday.
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Kuwait, which makes half its revenues from oil, had its finances squeezed by an oil price crash and by the COVID-19 pandemic, while a draft law that would allow it to tap international debt has stalled amid disagreement between successive parliaments and cabinets.
The International Monetary Fund estimated in April that Kuwait's GDP contracted 8% in 2020.
KUNA based its report on Central Bank of Kuwait's governor, Mohammad al-Hashel, who cited preliminary estimates and statistics and said the institution used all the tools available to it to blunt the pandemic's impact.
