Mohammed approves National Programme for Developing Statistics System

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister, and Ruler of Dubai, has approved the National Programme for Developing the Statistics System in the UAE.

This strategic initiative embodies the UAE’s commitment to enhancing the quality of official economic statistics, keeping pace with rapid transformations of the economy, and consolidating the UAE's standing among the world's leading economies.

The programme includes setting 2024 as the unified base year for national accounts and reconstructing the time series for the GDP of the UAE for the period 2010-2026. This will provide a more accurate and comprehensive picture of the real size, diversity, and growth momentum of the UAE’s economy, enhance the reliability of official economic statistics, and strengthen their international comparability.

This will also support economic decision-making, public policy development, and future planning, while also boosting the confidence of investors and international financial and economic institutions, thus contributing to the UAE's emergence as a global economic powerhouse.

The programme comes in response to the structural transformations in the national economy in recent years, most notably the rapid growth of non-oil economic activities, the expansion in services, digital economy, technology, and investment sectors, and the utilisation of modern administrative data sources. That includes data generated by the implementation of corporate tax and value-added tax.

This provides more comprehensive coverage of economic activities and contributes to increasing the accuracy of their measurement, thus reflecting the country's economic reality.

The programme is based on an integrated national framework for updating and harmonising national accounts, in accordance with the UN System of National Accounts and the best international statistical standards and recommendations. This is achieved through updating the base year, expanding data sources, and enhancing the integration of administrative records, ensuring the production of more accurate, consistent, and transparent economic indicators in line with the latest international practices.

The programme also reflects an institutional commitment to regularly updating the base year, in line with the best international standards and practices of statistics.

In addition, the programme adopts a unified national methodology for reviewing GDP data at the national level. This ensures the sustainable development of the national statistics system and its ability to keep pace with economic transformations.

All future updates will be conducted in line with internationally recognised methodological frameworks and based on the readiness and availability of national data, ensuring the continued quality and international comparability of official statistics.

The National Programme for Developing the Statistics System comprises a comprehensive review of national accounts, a globally recognised statistical practice adopted periodically by advanced statistical systems as national economies develop and more comprehensive data sources become available.

This aims to bolster the quality of GDP measurement by reflecting the continuous evolution of statistical methodologies and data sources, and to keep pace with the country's economic growth.

The programme is executed through a comprehensive national partnership led by the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre, the national entity responsible for unifying official statistics across the UAE. This is achieved in coordination with local statistics centres in the various emirates and federal data providers within the framework of the national statistics system.

This approach enhances the integration of roles and the unification of data sources. The partnership includes multiple key national entities, most notably the Central Bank of the UAE, the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Tax Authority, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, the Emirates Investment Authority, Etihad Water and Electricity Company, and others. This collaborative effort provides a comprehensive national economic database that supports the development of a more accurate and detailed time series of GDP.

The National Programme for Developing the Statistics System in the UAE serves as the strategic umbrella for modernising the UAE’s national statistics system.

This to be achieved through an integrated package of legislative, institutional and technical initiatives, including the comprehensive national review of GDP, the national strategy for the statistics system, a package of policies supporting statistical work, the national platform for statistical data, the statistical leadership development programme and the UAE Principles for Official Statistics document, which supports economic decision-making and consolidates the country’s competitiveness as a leading global model in developing and producing official economic statistics.

WAM