KUWAIT, 11 April 2005 — Kuwait has swung to a net balance of payments surplus of 197 million dinars ($674 million) in 2004, reversing a large deficit a year earlier, the central bank chief said yesterday. Central Bank of Kuwait Governor Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah, speaking to state news agency KUNA and citing preliminary data, said the latest balance of payments surplus compared with a deficit of 524 million dinars in 2003. Salem also said that the country had posted a commodity balance surplus of about 5.69 billion dinars ($19.5 billion) in 2004, up 2.14 billion dinars or more than 60 percent from the previous year.