Dubai Dubai's budget deficit narrowed sharply to Dh3.7 billion last year, helped by higher oil revenues and lower spending on development projects, a sovereign bond prospectus produced by the emirate showed Monday.
The shortfall was equivalent to 1.2 per cent of the emirate's 2010 gross domestic product (GDP), according to Reuters calculations, down from 2 per cent of GDP the previous year.
Dubai has yet to issue GDP data for last year.
Government expenditures edged up slightly to Dh35.98 billion last year compared with 2010 and came above an initial Dh33.68 billion plan, the prospectus for a Dubai sovereign bond issue, seen by Reuters, showed.
Dubai's spending on infrastructure projects fell by 20 per cent to Dh7.09 billion in 2011 and stood at half of the level in 2008.
Revenue in Dubai, whose budget makes up around 11 per cent of all public funds spent in the UAE a year, jumped 8.1 per cent to Dh32.28 billion in 2011 from the previous year, helped by an increase in average oil prices.
Dubai's budget is prepared on a cash basis and does not consolidate the budget data for government-owned companies except for the dividend income from its sovereign wealth fund, the Investment Corporation of Dubai ICD.
The 2011 budget figures are yet to be audited.
Dubai, which accounts for nearly a third of the UAE's GDP, is aiming for economic growth of 4.5 per cent this year, up from an estimated expansion of more than 3 per cent in 2011, the emirate's top official said in February.
