Dubai: Saudi Arabia is repaying debts to contractors after long delays that squeezed company finances and hurt investor sentiment, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

Payments have started to some major builders as well as companies outside the construction industry, the people said, asking not to be identified because they are not authorised to speak publicly. Some companies were told 30 to 40 per cent of the outstanding dues will be paid before the end of the year, with the remainder to be settled in 2017, two people said.

The world’s biggest oil exporter started delaying payments to contractors last year as it sought to rein in a budget deficit that reached about 15 per cent of gross domestic product. The austerity drive caused the non-oil economy to shrink in the last three months of 2015 and the first quarter this year. The country is working to shore up its finances, including through the sale of as much as $17.5 billion of dollar bonds.

Finance Minister Ibrahim Al Assaf, speaking in an interview with Saudi-owned network MBC, said payments “have been regularised and will rise in the coming period.” He did not give details. The network said parts of the interview were leaked on social media.

Saudi daily Okaz reported last month that the government had started to pay dues owed to Saudi Binladin Group, the Kingdom’s biggest construction company, citing Abdullah Basodan, adviser to company Chairman Bakr bin Mohammed Binladin.

The Kingdom is undergoing the biggest economic shakeup in its history in an attempt to reduce its reliance on oil. The government aims to raise more than $100 billion in non-oil revenue a year by 2020, through measures including value-added taxation.

The IMF said on Tuesday the pace of austerity could ease “a little” next year, helping non-oil growth recover to 2.6 per cent from 0.3 per cent in 2016. The fiscal consolidation, however, “needs to continue over the next five years,” Masood Ahmed, head of the IMF Middle East and Central Asia department, said in an interview in Dubai.