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28 March 2024

Household spend on fuel, rent up 3.4% last year

Dubai residents now spend less on rent, fuel. (FILE)

Published
By Mohammed Al Sadafy

The share of household budgets spent on house rent and fuel fell in Dubai during the last year, but the total amount spent on these two major segments of domestic expenditure among UAE nationals and expatriates, rose by 3.4 per cent.

Arif Obaid Al Muhairi, Chief Executive of Dubai Statistics Centre, said while the share of rent and fuel fell to 40.5 per cent of the total bill in 2009, from 44 per cent in 2008, the total value of these essential expenditures rose to Dh19,330.66 compared to Dh18,695.31.

He attributed this contradiction to the fact that rents fell during the assessment period prompting many residents to move to bigger accommodations like villas.

The survey on household expenditure covers eight categories - rent, food, transport and communications, clothing, furniture, healthcare, entertainment and recreation, commodities and services.

The survey revealed higher spending by expatriates who shelled out an average of Dh47,694.10 in 2009 as against Dh42,536.45 in 2008 to register a rise of 12.12 per cent.

Household expenses on food, drinks and cigarettes increased to Dh7,904.055 in 2009, or 16.6 per cent of the domestic spend. The figure was Dh6,506.29, or 15.3 per cent of the household budget in the previous year.

Al Muhairi said the rise in this segment was due to the decline in rents which led to people spending more on luxuries like better consumer goods.

However, he said the money spent on transport and communications only saw a marginal rise at 0.6 per cent during the period. It rose to Dh7,888.58, hogging 16.1 per cent of the total budget, in 2009 from Dh6,605.82 in 2008 when it was 15.5 per cent of the budget.