S&P forecasts Abu Dhabi GDP to surge to AED850 billion in 2017

Standard & Poor’s has forecast Abu Dhabi GDP to rise to AED850 billion and AED890 billion at current prices in 2017 and 2018 respectively, attributing the growth to the momentum witnessed by the oil and non-oil sectors since the beginning of this year.

The credit ratings agency expected the emirate's per capital GDP to amount to AED277,000 during 2017 at current prices, which is the highest across the GCC States. Inflation is anticipated to stand at 2.5 percent during 2017 and projected to get down to 2 percent in 2018.

The forecasts are in harmony with those announced by the Statistics Centre- Abu Dhabi earlier, which expected the emirate’s economy to grow by 17.7 percent during Q1 2017 against the corresponding period last year.

Economic analysts surveyed by WAM attributed the positive economic performance of the emirate to the considerable growth in non-oil activities which now account for more than two thirds of the emirate’s GDP, in addition to the noticeable improvement in global oil prices.

The Oil & Gas sector's contribution to the emirate’s GDP declined to 27.5 percent in 2016 while the non-oil sector contributed a 50-year high of 72.5 percent, which translates the successful economic diversification measures taken by the government.

According to SCAD figures, the information and telecommunications sectors contributed 6.9 percent to the emirate’s GDP, followed by the transportation and storage sectors with 5.8 percent and the process industries with 3.6 percent.