Dubai: Economic growth in the UAE is expected to pick up momentum this year from a relatively sluggish growth last year, according to the latest growth projections form the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“Last year, GDP growth fell short of our projections, largely driven by low growth from the oil sector. We expect modest gains in growth from this year largely driven by non-oil sector and stronger growth from oil sector from 2019,” said Jihad Azour, director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the IMF.
The UAE economy is expected to grow at 3 per cent next year, according to the latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) of the IMF. For 2018, meanwhile, the UAE’s growth has been projected at a more modest 2 per cent compared to the projections of 3.4 per cent made in last October.
The country’s economic growth has been revised downwards to 0.5 per cent in 2017 from a projected 1.3 per cent in October last year. The downward revision was largely driven by negative growth (-2.5) per cent in the oil GDP. For 2018 oil GDP growth is projected remain flat while it is expected to grow at 2.4 per cent. Non-oil GDP for the country grew at 1.9 per cent last year and is projected to grow at 2.8 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively in 2018 and 2019.
For Abu Dhabi, according to the IMF data, the real GDP growth was -1.6 per cent in 2017 and is projected to grow at 0.5 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively in 2018 and 2019. Indicating slower growth from oil sector impacting the overall GDP growth, the IMF data showed that Abu Dhabi’s oil GDP grew -2.4 per cent last year with flat growth ahead for 2018 and 2.4 for per cent in 2019.
Dubai continued to strong non-oil GDP growth at 3.3 per cent in 2017 and the IMF projects 3.7 per cent and 3.6 per cent in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
