Dubai economy could take 11% hit from travel, tourism curbs in 2020

Dubai economy could take 11% hit from travel, tourism curbs in 2020

Dubai's economy could contract sharply by around 11 percent in 2020 due to restrictions on travel and tourism during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, S&P Global Ratings said in a research note on Saturday.

While it does not rate Dubai, the rating agency said based on publicly available information, Dubai's gross general government debt will reach about 77 percent of GDP this year (AED290 billion) compared to 61 percent in 2019.

Government's outstanding direct debt around 28% of last year's GDP, according to document seen by Bloomberg

It added that although Dubai's economy is more diversified than that of most its regional peers, it may take until 2023 for it to recover to 2019 levels due to the impact of the global Covid-19 crisis which forced the postponement of Expo Dubai 2020 to next