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Fitch Ratings has affirmed Abu Dhabi’s rating at ‘AA’ with a stable outlook, reflecting the emirate’s strong fiscal position and high GDP per capita.
Abu Dhabi’s government debt, which stood at 15% of projected 2024 GDP in June, was among the lowest of Fitch-rated sovereigns, with sovereign net foreign assets (SNFA) among the highest, at 225% of GDP at end-2023 ($672 billion), up significantly from end-2022 due to strong global stock markets.
“We forecast Abu Dhabi will run fiscal surpluses of 5.4% of GDP in 2024 and 3.6% in 2025, after our estimate of 11% of GDP in 2023,” Fitch said.
Oil production is also forecast to rise, in line with OPEC+’s June agreement to reach 3.375 million barrels per day by December 2025, which Fitch said was still well below Abu Dhabi’s stated production capacity of 4.85 million barrels per day. This will also partly offset lower Brent oil prices, which Fitch projects to average $70 per barrel in 2025 and $65 in 2026.
Spending is projected to remain contained within a target band of 260 billion to 300 billion UAE dirhams ($68 billion to $81.67 billion), with the majority of Abu Dhabi’s capital spending undertaken by state-owned enterprises.
Constraints have been raised from “a high dependence on hydrocarbons, a relatively weak but improving economic policy framework and low governance indicators compared with peers,” Fitch said.
(Writing by Bindu Rai, editing by Seban Scaria)
