ABU DHABI, UAE – In the UAE the revenues at the federal level increased by 26 percent from US$100 billion (AED367.9 billion) in 2020 to $126.3 billion (AED463.9 billion) in 2021, says the Ministry of Finance (MoF) data released Tuesday.
The MoF released the preliminary government finance statistics data for year 2021, in accordance with the criteria of the Government Finance Statistics Manual issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
This comes in line with the Open Data Policy set by the UAE.
Social contributions in the UAE also rose by five percent from $3.5 billion (AED12.9 billion) in 2020 to $3.6 billion (AED13.5 billion) in 2021.
The value of other revenues (including interests received, dividends, rents, sales of goods and services, fines, penalties, and other transfers) increased by 24 percent from $55.4 billion (AED203.8 billion) in 2020 to $68.5 billion (AED251.8 billion) in 2021.
Expenditures saw a 1 percent increase from $108.7 billion (AED399.5 billion) in 2020 to $109.5 billion (AED402.4 billion) in 2021.
Capital expenditures decreased by 57 percent from $12.6 billion (AED46.5 billion) in 2020 to $5.4 billion (AED20.0 billion) in 2021.
Current expenses increased by 8 percent from $96.1 billion (AED353.0 billion) in 2020 to $104.1 billion (AED382.4 billion) in 2021.
This includes workers’ compensation, use of goods and services, consumption of fixed capital, interest paid, subsidies, grants, social benefits and other transfers.
In terms of net lending / borrowing, the results showed a significant increase at the federal level; while the results for 2020 showed a deficit of $8.6 billion (AED31.7 billion), it achieved a surplus of $16.7 billion (AED61.5 billion) in 2021.
Net lending / borrowing measures governments’ ability to lend or their need to borrow and is considered an indicator of the financial impact of government activity on the economy.