The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
The International Monetary Fund expects the UAE economic growth to nearly triple next year as Abu Dhabi benefits from an expected recovery in oil exports. The UAE’s GDP will expand 3.4 percent in 2018 from 1.3 percent this year, largely on expectations that growth in oil-rich Abu Dhabi will surge to 3.2 percent from 0.3 percent this year. Dubai’s output will accelerate more moderately, to 3.5 percent from 3.3 percent in 2017, it estimated.
“The non-oil sector both in Dubai and Abu Dhabi is almost growing at the same speed, around 3 percent,†Jihad Azour, head of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, told reporters in Dubai on Tuesday. The recovery in Abu Dhabi, which holds about 6 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, will be helped by a recovery in oil output next year after the OPEC-led agreement to reduce production caused exports to decline this year, he said.