Middle East Economic Survey

VOL. LII

No 10

9-Mar-2009

UAE

UAE Embarks Upon Budget Reform

The UAE has embarked upon a plan to reform its federal budget, and plans to adopt what is described as a zero-based regime from 2011. Currently incremental budgeting is used, where different departments have to justify only the increases in expenditure over the previous year. In a zero-based system (which is used in some US states, the UK and Singapore) all departments start with a blank slate and every expense...