Saudi firms' access to credit will not improve during the second half of this year despite a recent surge in the price of oil, the kingdom's economic mainstay, a survey showed.

"Businesses know that Saudi Arabia's fiscal position is healthy with oil at $60, so any talk of possible fiscal imbalances is no longer very convincing," SABB said in a quarterly survey of 951 companies.

Less than a third of the respondents, or 30 percent, of respondents expect bank lending to be "accommodating" at best over the next two quarters.

Some 48 percent said lending conditions will be "severe" in the second half of 2009 up from 27 percent of respondents in the first quarter's survey. Some 22 percent expect lending conditions will "not be so severe".

"Businesses are still not optimistic about the lending attitude of banks in the kingdom," it added. The survey was conducted during the month of May.

Oil prices hit a seven-month high of $69.05 on Tuesday after jumping 30 percent in May as expectations that the worst of the global economic crisis may be over lifted equities and commodities markets.

But the commodity is still trading 54 percent below the record high of more than $147 hit in mid-July last year.

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, has so far suffered less from the repercussions of the global financial crisis than some Gulf  countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

The kingdom's central bank has slashed the benchmark lending rate by more than half to 2 percent since October and cut other rates to encourage banks to pump liquidity into the system.

"It seems that the liquidity measures taken by (central bank) have not unlocked additional liquidity for the private sector - a trend which has persisted since the fourth quarter of 2008," SABB said.

About three out of four Saudi firms anticipate that interest rates will stay the same in the second half while none expect them to rise.

Because the kingdom has the largest population in the region, it faces a bigger challenge in meeting growing job demands from its native population.

About 70 percent respondents expect a hiring freeze over the second half, slightly down from 74 percent in the first quarter's survey. - Reuters