ABU DHABI: The UAE has raised its 2009 state overheads by 21 percent to AED42.2 billion ($11.49 billion) in a balanced budget, the state news agency WAM reported yesterday.
The budget forecasts no shortfall, but did not say at which price it calculated oil revenue, WAM said. However, an IMF report said that the United Arab Emirates does not have to worry unless oil prices drop much further.
In the budget, 37 percent of spending was allocated to services and 21 percent to education.
Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, who presided over the extraordinary Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Palace here, listened to the reading of the budget report, which contained details of the budget, including the revenue, the expenditure and the rate of increase in the 2008 revenue, compared to the previous years.
The meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.
The report also includes the annual growth rate of both the income and expenditure for the last ten years. It shows that revenues generated by the ministries will grow in 2009 to about AED24 million, up from the AED7 million recorded in 1999.
Sheikh Mohammed urged all ministers to strive to improve the performance of their respective ministries to enable the UAE maintain its status as a nation of institutions, rule of law and excellence.
In 2008’s AED34.9 billion deficit-free budget, pay hikes for civilian federal employees and personnel of the Interior Ministry had been included. The budget had also featured increase in social aid and set aside AED9.7 billion for education.
Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry said that the government has injected AED25 billion ($6.81 billion) into banks in an effort to rejuvenate lending and alleviate the global liquidity crisis.
“(This money) is designed to support the capital of national banks. The allocations of each bank were determined based on the loans and credit portfolios,” the ministry said in a statement. The funds are part of the AED70 billion package announced earlier in the month that the government had said they would be injecting into the country’s banking system.
