{"id":626217,"date":"2026-10-10T08:32:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T08:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626217\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T08:32:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T08:32:22","slug":"uae-economy-grew-in-first-half-of-2026-despite-impact-of-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626217\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE economy grew in first half of 2026 despite impact of Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UAE’s real gross domestic product grew 0.4 per cent annually to Dh961.9 billion ($262 billion) in the first half of 2026, driven by non-oil business activity, despite the impact of the Iran war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The non-oil sector’s contribution to the GDP during the six-month period increased by 1.8 per cent to 79.2 per cent, the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre said in a statement on Friday.<\/p>\n

The results “reflect the continued diversification of the UAE’s economic base and the growing role of non-oil activities”, the FCSC said.<\/p>\n

Trade topped contributions to non-oil GDP at 16.2 per cent, followed by financial and insurance (15.2 per cent), construction (13.1 per cent), manufacturing (11.8) and real estate (7.9 per cent). <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, activities in the financial and insurance sector posted the highest growth rate in the six months through the end of June, rising by 14.8 per cent, the FCSC said. That was followed by information and communication (7.3 per cent), health and social work (6 per cent), construction (5.1 per cent), government (3.6 per cent) and real estate (2.3 per cent).<\/p>\n

The non-oil sector’s “expanding contribution to economic activity demonstrates the diversity of growth drivers and supports sustainable and balanced growth across a broad range of economic sectors”, the FCSC added.<\/p>\n

The UAE’s GDP last year grew 6.2 per cent<\/a> year-on-year to hit Dh1.9 trillion, as non-oil GDP jumped 6.8 per cent to Dh1.5 trillion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Al Zeyoudi: Major investments coming at home and abroad<\/p>\n

In the second quarter of the year, the UAE’s real GDP hit Dh476.9 billion, a decline of 2.1 per cent annually. Non-oil activities also contracted by 1.1 per cent, as several economic sectors, particularly tourism, transport and trade, were affected by regional developments and disruption to travel.<\/p>\n

However, the non-oil sector has started to rebound. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index remained stable at 55.3 in September, the same as August, and well above the 50 mark that indicates growth in economic activity. <\/p>\n

That reading is \u201canother indication that the non-oil economy has moved past the midyear slowdown linked to the Middle East conflict\u201d, S&P said. <\/p>\n

Business activity in September increased rapidly<\/a> and higher output requirements encouraged companies to expand purchasing activity and employment, with staffing numbers rising modestly last month, the index found. <\/p>\n

Demand conditions in the UAE non-oil private sector<\/a> also continued to improve markedly in September, boosting pricing power and enabling companies to raise their selling prices at the fastest pace in more than 15 years, in response to higher input costs, the report found. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UAE’s real gross domestic product grew 0.4 per cent annually to Dh961.9 billion ($262 billion) in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,11721,219,111,139,69,1177,427,4719],"class_list":["post-626217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-business-team","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-standard","tag-story","tag-uae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}