Sharjah has approved its largest budget in history for 2025, amounting to approximately AED42 billion (around $11.4 billion). This budget is designed to promote financial sustainability, drive social welfare, and ensure the sustainability of vital resources such as energy, water, and food.Â
His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, has approved the emirate’s general budget, marking it as the largest in its history.
Empowering government agencies
The budget is intended to empower government agencies to finance their strategic initiatives and projects, provide appropriate housing for diverse citizen groups across Sharjah, and upgrade the tourism infrastructure. These measures are aimed at enhancing cultural, recreational, and social tourism, ultimately increasing this vital sector’s contribution to sustainable economic growth.
Strategic foundations for 2025
The general budget for 2025 is built on several strategic and financial foundations. It underscores a commitment to creating an innovative environment in the social, cultural, health, tourism, and infrastructure sectors to align with the standards of advanced nations, ensuring that all residents of the emirate benefit from the economic prosperity achieved.
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Addressing global challenges
The budget also seeks to enhance the government’s capacity to tackle global and regional challenges affecting economies worldwide, such as inflation, rising interest rates, economic downturns, and geopolitical tensions that impact every nation.
Protecting interests in Sharjah
The Sharjah government is dedicated to leveraging its financial, economic, and strategic resources to mitigate the negative effects of these challenges on the region’s financial landscape. Their goal is to protect the interests of UAE citizens, residents, businesses, and institutions operating within Sharjah.
Strategic objectives and priorities
The overall budget has adopted a variety of strategic objectives, priorities, and performance indicators that cover economic, social, scientific, cultural, civilizational, tourism, and structural dimensions. The citizen remains at the core of this initiative.
Enhancing quality of life
Guided by the directives of H.H. the Ruler of Sharjah, the emirate’s budget aims to promote a good quality of life for citizens and residents. This is accomplished through the execution of numerous projects and initiatives across diverse sectors, ensuring that everyone experiences economic and social stability, along with security and safety.
Key investment objectives
The budget seeks to achieve several key objectives, foremost among them being the enhancement of investment in infrastructure alongside economic, social, cultural, and tourism initiatives that boost the emirate’s competitiveness and ensure its financial sustainability.
Social support initiatives
Furthermore, it emphasizes providing social support in various forms to meet the diverse needs of citizens and guarantee a satisfactory quality of life.
Job creation focus
The budget also highlights the creation of job opportunities in both the public and private sectors, with a special focus on developing the skills and capabilities of citizens seeking employment, equipping them with valuable entrepreneurial skills for success in real-world settings.
Transforming Sharjah
This initiative is aimed at motivating them to contribute meaningfully to transforming Sharjah into a vibrant scientific and cultural center while also promoting a unique environment for tourism and economic activity. Ultimately, these efforts aspire to enhance Sharjah’s cultural, economic, and financial status both locally and internationally.
Effective economic strategies
The budget intends to utilize and develop the most effective means and technologies to stimulate the economy, encourage development, and ensure financial sustainability. It also emphasizes the growing significance of national human resources and their essential role in construction and sustainable development processes, all of which the budget seeks to accomplish during the fiscal year 2025.
Financial management planning
Aligned with the government’s financial plan for 2023-2030, the budget focuses on managing and optimizing spending in areas that may not contribute to competitiveness or financial sustainability. This strategy is designed to enhance the efficiency of government spending management across the emirate and improve the capabilities of agencies to fund their programs, activities, and strategic plans. Consequently, the 2025 budget reflects a 2 percent increase over the budget for 2024.
Strategic vision for the future
Sheikh Mohammed bin Saud Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Sharjah Finance Department, emphasized that the emirate’s general budget encompasses a range of strategic and financial objectives that align with the ambitious directives of the Ruler of Sharjah. This mirrors his comprehensive and evolving vision, along with the guidance from the Executive Council and the strategic outlook of the Central Finance Department, aimed at achieving the highest levels of financial sustainability and efficiently managing government financial resources.
Enhancing competitiveness
The budget also aims to enhance the emirate’s competitiveness across various economic, social, and infrastructure domains while ensuring adequate support for government agencies to provide services that meet international standards. Performance indicators from the budget are specifically designed to effectively measure these standards. Furthermore, there is a strong emphasis on strengthening strategic partnerships with the private sector, providing ongoing support to ensure its continuous growth and advancement within the emirate.
Innovative financing methods
For the 2025 general budget, a variety of development tools and innovative financing methods have been adopted to explore optimal funding opportunities both internally and externally. This approach aims to secure financial sustainability for the government, which has implemented an integrated strategy in collaboration with relevant government agencies to enhance the digital transformation of various financial services. This includes modernizing electronic payment and collection systems, thereby offering competitive services to customers.
Streamlining operations
Additionally, these efforts improve government agencies’ capacity to streamline operations and reduce bureaucracy, ultimately facilitating significant advancements in the emirate’s financial system.
Dimensions of the budget
Sheikh Mohammed bin Saud stated that the 2025 general budget encompasses two main dimensions: economic and social development aimed at enhancing residents’ quality of life, and strategic development focusing on improving the government’s financial sustainability.
Strategic economic stimulus
The budget includes strategic priorities to stimulate the emirate’s economy through discounts and a review of various service fees to lower costs for customers and investors. It emphasizes fulfilling developmental and social needs to drive economic growth, thereby boosting Sharjah’s standing in regional and global markets.
Financial stability goals
Moreover, the budget seeks to improve financial stability and competitiveness by providing efficient financial and strategic services, creating an attractive environment for both local and international investors, and enhancing tourism opportunities across cultural, heritage, therapeutic, scientific, and recreational sectors.
Alignment with international standards
All data, indicators, and outcomes are aligned with international financial standards regarding inflation rates, sectoral spending, and other macroeconomic metrics, while also strengthening policies to control and rationalize government spending.
Strategic direction for development
According to Sheikh Mohammed, the budget outlines a strategic direction for the emirate, focusing on developing infrastructure in key facilities and areas, environmental conservation, public health initiatives, and promoting tourism through various projects overseen by H.H. the Ruler of Sharjah. These endeavors are designed to boost the emirate’s reputation as a destination for tourism, science, and culture, while driving a favorable investment climate.
Human resource development
The budget aims to enhance investment in human resources and increase employment opportunities, identified as strategic priorities. It also emphasizes financial support for government agencies to meet their funding requirements, thereby enhancing their capabilities to implement strategic and operational initiatives. Additionally, the budget aims to provide high-quality services to all residents, adhering to standards and practices that contribute to societal well-being, positioning Sharjah as a significant player on the global cultural, scientific, and tourism stage.
Expenditure overview for 2025
The figures from the general budget for 2025 reveal a 2 percent increase in expenditures compared to the 2024 budget. In this budget, salaries and wages account for 27 percent, while operating expenses constitute 23 percent.
Commitment to capital projects
The government has maintained its commitment to capital projects, ensuring that this budget remains significant at 20 percent of the total. Furthermore, the budget for loan repayments and interest has risen by 2 percent to represent 16 percent of the overall budget for 2025, reinforcing the government’s capability and financial stability in meeting its obligations.
Support and aid allocations
Conversely, the budget for support and aid represents about 12 percent of the general budget, with capital expenditures comprising roughly 2 percent of the total for 2025.
Economic sector classification
Classifying the budget by economic sectors is a crucial tool reflecting the government’s strategic direction. For 2025, the infrastructure sector takes precedence, accounting for 41 percent of the total general budget. This marks a 7 percent increase compared to the 2024 budget, underscoring the government’s strong commitment to enhancing the emirate’s infrastructure. This focus serves as a key pillar for sustainable development and aims to attract both foreign and local investments across various vital sectors.
Ranking of economic sectors
The economic development sector ranks second in relative significance, making up approximately 27 percent of the total general budget for 2025.
Social development sector importance
Meanwhile, the social development sector holds third place, accounting for about 22 percent of the total general budget for 2024. This sector has maintained its relative importance compared to the overall budget from the previous year, ensuring that we provide the best possible services, support, and assistance to both citizens and residents in the emirate.
Government administration and safety
Additionally, the government administration, security, and safety sector constitutes about 10 percent of the total general budget for 2025, reflecting an 8 percent increase from the 2024 budget.
Increasing public revenues
The government has placed strong emphasis on increasing public revenues by enhancing collection efficiency and adopting advanced technical and smart tools. The 2025 budget indicates a notable 8 percent increase in public revenues compared to the 2024 figures. Operating revenues will account for 74 percent of the total revenue budget for 2025, reflecting a significant 16 percent increase over the prior year’s operating revenues. Meanwhile, capital revenues are projected to represent 10 percent of the total for 2025.
Tax revenue contributions
Tax revenues are expected to contribute approximately 10 percent of the overall public revenues for 2025, marking a 15 percent rise compared to the 2024 tax revenue projections. Additionally, customs revenues are anticipated to account for 4 percent of the total, remaining consistent with its significance in the previous year.
Oil and gas revenue projections
Finally, oil and gas revenues are projected to constitute about 2 percent of the total revenue budget for 2025.
