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UAE Economy to Grow 3.2% in 2010 | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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DUBAI (AFP) – The United Arab Emirates economy is expected to expand by 3.2 percent in 2010, in sharp contrast to an International Monetary Fund forecast of 0.6-percent growth, a minister said on Tuesday.

“The coming period will witness gradual growth, initially, picking up momentum,” UAE Economy Minster Sultan al-Mansuri told a forum in Dubai.

He also said the oil-rich Gulf state’s economy grew by an estimated 1.3 percent last year, although the IMF said last month that the UAE economy had contracted by 0.7 percent in 2009 due to the global financial crisis.

“Our GDP (gross domestic product) grew 6.2 percent in 2007 and 7.4 percent in 2008 and (had) an estimated growth of 1.3 percent in 2009 and (is expected to grow) 3.2 percent in 2010,” he said.

The IMF said last month that the UAE’s economy was “adversely affected by a series of external and domestic shocks in 2009.”

These shocks included the global economic slowdown, the shutdown of international capital markets for borrowing and the impact of the “bursting Dubai property bubble in mid-2008,” the IMF said.

The economy was also affected by plummeting oil receipts, and a contraction in global trade, logistics and construction activities, it added.

And it was disrupted in the final quarter by Dubai’s multi-billion-dollar debt woes, when the emirate’s government announced it would seek to freeze debt payments by its largest and most-indebted group — Dubai World.