The United Arab Emirates' cabinet has approved a balanced budget for the 2025 fiscal year with expenditures rising to 71.5 billion dirhams ($19.47 billion), state news agency WAM said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Gulf state, one of the world's top oil exporters, projects an increase in spending of almost 12% next year from 2024 estimates, but still expects a balanced budget in 2025, since revenue is also budgeted at 71.5 billion dirhams, according to the statement.

The approved annual budget is part of the UAE's multi-year financial plan for the years 2022-2026. The country approved a$52.3 billion budget for 2024-26 last October.

The UAE is a federation of seven emirates, all of which can set individual budgets, in addition to a federal budget. A large focus of the federal budget is on social and welfare spending.

Almost 40% of the 2025 budget will be allocated to social development and pensions, with education accounting for the majority of spending in that sector, followed by healthcare.

More than 35% of the spending is for government affairs, with much smaller allocations for the Infrastructure and Economic Affairs sector and for the Financial Investments sector, the statement said.

($1 = 3.6727 UAE dirham)

(Reporting by Ahmed Elimam and Rachna Uppal; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Kim Coghill)