The United Arab Emirates has approved a comprehensive National Statistics Programme designed to modernize how the country measures and reports its economy, a move officials say will sharpen policymaking and reinforce investor confidence as the UAE's non-oil sectors continue to expand.
Speaking on the initiative, Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs, said the programme reflects a government approach built on continuous development and the adoption of global best practices. The announcement was first reported by Emirates 24|7, citing state news agency WAM, and comes as the UAE pushes to keep its statistical framework in step with a rapidly diversifying economy.
A rebuilt GDP series, starting from 2010
The centerpiece of the programme is a shift to 2024 as the new base year for national accounts, alongside a full reconstruction of the UAE's GDP time series stretching from 2010 through 2026. In practical terms, that means statisticians will re-calculate more than a decade and a half of economic output using a more current picture of how the economy is structured today.
That matters because base years age quickly in a fast-growing economy. A base year set a decade ago understates the current weight of sectors that barely existed at scale back then. By resetting the base year to 2024, the programme is designed to better capture the contribution of digital technology, services, investment and other non-oil industries that have grown to become central pillars of UAE output.
A GDP base year is the reference point used to strip out inflation and measure real economic growth. An outdated base year can understate the size of fast-growing sectors like technology and services, while overstating the relative weight of older, slower-growing industries. Updating it more frequently keeps official growth figures closer to economic reality, which is exactly the gap this programme is built to close.
Who is running it
Implementation sits with the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre, working alongside local statistics centers, the Central Bank of the UAE, the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Tax Authority and other government entities. The intent is to build a single, unified national economic database rather than have each authority maintain separate, sometimes inconsistent, data sets.
| Entity | Role in the Programme |
|---|---|
| Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre | Lead implementation and methodology |
| Central Bank of the UAE | Monetary and financial data integration |
| Ministry of Finance | Fiscal data alignment |
| Federal Tax Authority | Administrative tax-record data sources |
| Local statistics centers | Emirate-level data collection and reporting |
International alignment and investor signal
The programme also introduces a unified national methodology for reviewing GDP data in line with the United Nations System of National Accounts, the global standard used to make GDP figures comparable across countries. Officials say the goal is to improve consistency, transparency and international comparability, all of which feed directly into how foreign investors and rating agencies assess the UAE's economic story.
For a country whose growth pitch increasingly rests on diversification away from oil, having statistics that credibly reflect that shift is not a technical footnote. Al Gergawi framed it as central to reinforcing the UAE's position as one of the world's most competitive economies, with more reliable data expected to support both strategic planning inside government and due diligence outside it.
More accurate GDP and sector-level data gives investors a clearer read on where non-oil growth is actually concentrated, useful for anyone benchmarking market size, sizing a fundraise narrative, or making a case to international LPs about the depth of the UAE's digital and services economy. Expect government agencies, banks and research houses to begin citing the rebuilt 2010 to 2026 series once it rolls out, so figures referenced in older UAE market reports may shift once the new base year takes effect.
What comes next
The National Statistics Programme forms part of a broader UAE strategy to use high-quality data as a tool for economic resilience and long-term competitiveness. Officials have not given a firm publication date for the rebuilt GDP series, but the multi-agency structure suggests a phased rollout as each data source is integrated into the unified database.
