Abu Dhabi’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, at current prices, increased by 14.4%, from AED 813.6 billion in 2017 to AED 931.0 billion in 2018, according to Statistics Centre – Abu Dhabi, SCAD.
The rise in the GDP was driven by the increase of activity in the value added of ‘Mining and quarrying’ (including crude oil and natural gas) by 35.7% in 2018 to AED 375.9 billion compared with 14.9% or AED 277.1 billion in 2017. This increase in value added resulted from higher oil prices, noted SCAD in its latest national accounts report.
As a result, its contribution to the total GDP increased from 34.1% in 2017 to 40.4% in 2018.
‘Non-oil’ activities at current prices increased by 3.5% in 2018. These activities have seen positive growth rates since 2013. The strong increase in oil activities combined with lower growth rates in non-oil activities contributed to a decrease in the percentage share of non-oil activities in GDP from 65.9% in 2017 to 59.6% in 2018.
The results showed increases across most of the non-oil activities of GDP during 2018. Value added by ‘Manufacturing ‘ increased by 13.8% in 2018. While the ‘ Activities of Public administration and defence; compulsory social security’ increased by 6.4% in 2018, compared with 10.9% in 2017, followed by the ‘Transportation and storage’ activity, which increased by 4.0% in 2018, compared with a decrease by 6.4% in 2017.
GDP at constant 2007 prices increased by 1.9% in 2018 following a decrease of 0.9% in 2017. ‘Manufacturing’ activities grew at 5.9% in 2018 compared with 5.4% in 2017. While non-oil activities increased 0.6% in 2018 compared with 0.9% in 2017.
The main contributors to constant price non-oil activities in 2018, were ‘Construction’ with a share of 10.2% of the total GDP and ‘Financial and insurance’ activities with 7.3%. The ‘Manufacturing’ activity contributed 6.2 %, while ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ and ‘Real estate’ activities contributed by 3.9% and 4.2% respectively in 2018.
The compensation of employees is an important component in the national accounts. The results shows that the compensation of employees rose by 3.7% in 2018 to AED 250.0 billion compared with AED 241.1 billion in 2017 when a growth rate of 6.2% was recorded.
Compensation of employees in the ‘Public administration and defense; compulsory social security’, activity contributed 26.1% of the total, while the ‘Construction’ activity contributed 1 1.7% and the ‘Manufacturing’ activity 8.5% in 2018.
Gross fixed capital formation increased by 6.8% to AED 157.3 billion in 2018 compared with AED 147.3 billion in 2017 when it decreased by 21.1%. The activities with the largest increase in the value of gross fixed capital formation in 2018 were ‘Public administration and defense; compulsory social security’, ‘Manufacturing’ and ‘Mining and quarrying (including crude oil and natural gas) ‘ with increases of 15.9%, 9.7% and 9.1% respectively.
The highest contribution to fixed capital formation during 2017 was from the ‘’Real estate’ ‘ activity with 23.9%, followed by ‘Mining and quarrying (includes crude oil and natural gas) with 23.3%.and the ‘Public administration and defense; compulsory social security’ activity with a contribution of 14.9% in 2018.
