Saudi Arabia, UAE boost spending to shield citizens from inflation

Saudi Arabia, UAE boost spending to shield citizens from inflation

DUBAI - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are boosting state spending on social welfare by billions of dollars as they seek to shield their citizens from rising living costs.

The UAE is doubling the financial support it provides to low-income Emirati families to 28 billion dirhams ($7.6 billion) to help them with soaring inflation in the Gulf state, while Saudi Arabia's King Salman ordered a 20 billion riyal ($5.33 billion) allocation.

The kingdom will reopen registration for the programme known as Citizens Account and allocate 8 billion riyals in additional funding for it through the end of the year.

Another 2 billion riyals will go to one-off payments to social insurance beneficiaries and 408 million riyals to a programme that supports small livestock breeders.

The UAE's expanded budget allocation, reported by state news agency WAM on Monday, includes increasing existing benefits and establishing new ones targeted at mitigating the impact of inflation on food prices, and rising fuel and household energy costs.

Some of the new benefits for Emiratis include financial support for university students and the unemployed who are over 45 years old.

James Swanston of Capital Economics said the spending boosts were equivalent to 0.6% of Saudi Arabia's GDP and 1.8% of