Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, plans to increase its economic output by an average of seven percent a year until 2015.
“There are many factors that will drive growth. Industry, tourism,” Mohammed Omar Abdullah, undersecretary at Abu Dhabi’s Department of Economic Development, said.
The emirate accounts for more than 60 percent of annual gross domestic product of the UAE.
Analysts polled by Reuters in March forecast the UAE’s economy would expand 3.4 percent in 2011, faster than an estimated 2.2 percent in 2010 as its trade hub Dubai emerges from debt troubles.
Abdullah also said he expected the rise in Abu Dhabi consumer prices to hold at around 3 percent this year.
“Inflation is controllable and we have a mechanism to deal with the situation,” he said.
Annual inflation in the emirate, which has 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves, had been edging higher over the past year. It peaked at 4.1 percent in November and October last year before slowing to 1.9 percent year-on-year in March from 3.1 percent the previous month.
Abu Dhabi plans to set up an export promotion agency in the second half of the year, Abdullah also said, as well as a competitiveness office to establish rules and regulations for opening businesses.
