Page 441 - Ministry of Economy - December 2017

12/25/2017 Challenges may come, but UAE's ready for it | MENAFN.COM
Jihad Azour, director of the Middle East and

Central Asia at the IMF, projected a 1.3 per cent

growth in UAE's real GDP in 2017, while the

overall GCC growth is expected to bottom out at

0.5 per cent this year, the lowest since the 0.3

per cent growth recorded in 2009 in the wake of

the global nancial crisis.

The IIF said the UAE's economic performance would improve
in 2017 and 2018 with rming oil prices, an improvement in
global trade and the expected easing pace of scal

adjustment. But headline growth - oil and non-oil combined -
will decelerate to 1.5 per cent in 2017 due to oil production cuts

under the extended Opec agreement.

"We expect non-oil real GDP growth to

accelerate to three per cent in 2017 and 3.5 per

cent in 2018, supported by investment and non-

oil exports of goods and services. Several high

frequency economic indicators, including the

Purchasing Managers' Index [PMI], retail sales

and number of tourist arrivals over the rst nine

months of 2017, suggest improvement in

sentiment and private sector activity," said the

IIF.

The UAE's PMI averaged 55.8 in the rst three quarters of 2017
as compared with 53.8 during the same period of last year (a

50.0 threshold separates expansion from contraction). Non-oil
activity in Abu Dhabi is improving after a challenging two

years during which deep government spending cuts slowed

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