The net figure is after a transfer of 10 percent of revenues to a fund for future generations, managed by the OPEC producer’s sovereign wealth fund.

Before the transfer, the fiscal surplus reached 8.5 billion dinars, or 23.1 percent of Kuwait’s gross domestic product, above market expectations and 6.4 billion seen in the previous fiscal year.

Analysts polled by Reuters in March forecast that Kuwait would post a surplus of 19.8 percent of GDP.

Expenditure came in at 12.4 billion dinars in fiscal year 2010/11, which ended in March, well behind the original plan of 16.3 billion dinars.

“These won’t be the final accounts for the 2010/11 fiscal year ... in the final set of accounts, expenditure is revised up very heavily,” said Daniel Kaye, senior economist at National Bank of Kuwait.

“I suspect that in the closing accounts, expenditure will be much closer to the budget numbers for the year.”

The budget included spending on a four-year, 30 billion-dinar development plan, which is aimed at diversifying the crude-reliant economy and increasing the role of the private sector.

Revenue reached 20.9 billion dinars in the year to March 31, more than double the 9.7 billion plan, preliminary data posted on the finance ministry’s website www.mof.gov.kw also showed.

Kuwait had set its 2010/11 budget with a deficit of 6.6 billion dinars, assuming that crude, its main revenue earner, would fetch $43 per barrel.

Benchmark US crude prices had been hovering between $64 and $107 a barrel during the 2010/11 fiscal year. As a result, oil income soared to 19.4 billion dinars, up from the original plan of 8.6 billion.

The ministry did not say when the final figures were expected.