Bahrain must urgently reform its finances to cut a large state budget deficit and support its currency, a senior International Monetary Fund official said after annual consultations with the government, Reuters reported.
Fiscal steps which the government has already announced would cut the deficit to 11 percent of gross domestic product in 2018 from 14 percent last year and around 18 percent in 2016, Bikas Joshi, who led an IMF mission to Manama, said in a statement late on Wednesday.