The Director General of the Department of Finance in Dubai, Abdul Rahman Saleh Al Saleh, said that the continued development of the balance sheet performance of Dubai during the past five years, reflects the keenness of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to sustain the financial system in Dubai, and stimulating entrepreneurship through attractive economic incentives for more investment, which increases the level of competitiveness of the Emirate and strengthen its position as a global investment center.
Expansionary spending
Al Saleh added that expansionary spending on infrastructure projects in Dubai and projects related to Expo 2020 comes at the forefront of the general budget priorities, to ensure completion as required and ahead of schedule, pointing to the exploitation of the budget surplus in the past years resulting from the adoption of disciplined financial policies In order to benefit from these projects, especially the Expo project and related projects, which total up to 2021 dirhams, it will be used to support the Dubai Strategic Plan 2021.
Sovereign debt
The Director General of the Department of Finance, during a meeting organized by the Dubai Government Media Office in a series «session with an official», with the participation of a group of editors of local and international newspapers operating in the country, that the sovereign debt of Dubai amounted to 32 billion dollars, and that the ratio of public debt to GDP The emirate has no more than 27.9% as of the end of September 2019, while the debt service ratio is only 5% of the general budget.
He stressed that Dubai is able to repay its sovereign debt, according to the program specified financial benefits, and that the Department is considering the possibilities of borrowing, and obtain financing for infrastructure projects through various means of financing, including bonds, sukuk, export guarantee, securitization, and other means, in order to support Infrastructure projects not operational expenditure.
Government fees
Al Saleh stressed that there has been no increase in government fees since the decision to freeze the increases in fees issued in March 2018, and that the decision did not in any way affect the solvency of the Government of Dubai, which is flexible and diverse, stressing that Dubai is able to meet all its obligations Finance without relying on any fee increases.
He pointed out that the Dubai government reduced some government fees in June 2018, out of its keenness to support the business sectors, stressing that this reduction has had little impact on the performance of the government budget, although it led to a decline in revenues by about two billion dirhams over 12 months Until June of this year.
Service costs
Al Saleh pointed out that the Department of Finance in Dubai continues to work on the project of calculating the costs of government services - diamonds, which launched in October 2018, with the aim of enhancing transparency and crystallization in the calculation of government services costs, and ensure the achievement of social justice in all government fees and applied in the Emirate Dubai to meet the best standards, support strategic decisions on pricing services, and encourage performance improvement. He revealed that the Department of Finance is currently working on a project to build a cost model for each government entity, and the centralization of the pricing formula for government services, pointing out that during the first phase of the project data collection and calculation of the cost of 1,400 government services provided by five government agencies, the project is supposed to expand to include more Of the 5,500 services provided by 23 government entities from the revenue generating bodies in the Government of Dubai.
Initiatives and partnerships
Al Saleh explained that the Department is implementing several initiatives that will continue until 2021, within the Dubai Government's strategic plan for partnership with the private sector, including the dissemination of policy and guidelines, the development of criteria for prioritizing partnership projects with the private sector, as well as the development of a list of partnership projects With the private sector, the development of electronic platform for partnership projects.
Turning waste into energy, a project that will start in 2020
The Director General of Dubai Department of Finance, Abdulrahman Saleh Al Saleh, announced that the Department of Finance in Dubai is currently preparing in cooperation with a house of expertise, to hold a conference on public-private partnership in the first half of next year, due to the important role of the private sector in Promoting the development process in Dubai.
He said that the Department has finalized the policy of the public-private partnership of the Government of Dubai, based on Law No. 22 of 2015 on the partnership between the two sectors, and also started work on the preparation of the framework of partnership between the two sectors at the emirate level, and launched several projects, most notably the project to convert waste to TAQA, which is being implemented by the Dubai Municipality in partnership with the private sector for 30 years, will be operational in 2020.
He predicted that the private sector will be involved in joint projects and initiatives with the government worth tens of billions within the next few years, pointing out that the department is currently working with government agencies to implement projects in the education, health and energy sectors totaling four billion dirhams, including the Dubai Municipality project To AED 3.5 billion and projects in the health sector.
Abdulrahman Saleh Al Saleh:
`` There has been no increase in government fees since they were frozen in March 2018. ''