Quoting official finance ministry figures, Al-Shall Economic Consultants said that by the end of August, the fifth month of the 2006-2007 fiscal year, Kuwait had earned seven billion dinars (24.2 billion dollars) because of high oil prices.

This figure is 31 percent up on the 18.4 billion dollars earned in the same period during the last fiscal year and as much as 82 percent of revenue projected for the entire fiscal year which ends next March 31.

Spending during the same period was about eight billion dollars, up on 6.1 billion dollars in the first five months of last year.

In the 2005-2006 fiscal year, the Gulf state posted a budget surplus of 23.8 billion dollars and income of 47.5 billion dollars -- both record highs.

This year's state budget, based on an oil price of 36 dollars a barrel, is projecting a deficit of 8.1 billion dollars, with revenues at 29.5 billion dollars and spending at 37.6 billion dollars.

The price of Kuwaiti oil currently stands at around 52 dollars a barrel, but in July it exceeded 68 dollars a barrel for the first time ever.

Kuwait has long been producing at almost full capacity of 2.5 million barrels per day. Oil income comprises more than 90 percent of the emirate's revenues.

This would be Kuwait's eighth straight windfall year. In the past seven years, its budget surplus totalled about 54 billion dollars.

Returns on the emirate's foreign assets, estimated in 2005 at more than five billion dollars, do not show in the budget.

Independent reports estimate Kuwait's total financial assets at about 166 billion dollars at the end of March this year.

They are managed by the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), the state investment arm, mostly in foreign holdings.

Kuwait sits on about 10 percent of the world's oil reserves and has a native population of one million people, in addition to two million foreign residents.