UAE cabinet clears balanced budget - Khaleej Times

ABU DHABI — The UAE cabinet yesterday gave its approval to country's first balanced budget in 24-years which has revenue outlay of Dh22.703 billion.

While making this historical announcement, the Ministry of Finance and Industry Affairs has directed the government Ministries, federal autonomous bodies and agencies to carry-out studies to work out the possibilities of outsourcing certain services, projects and activities to the private sector as a cost cutting and austerity drive.

One of the important features of the 2005 budget is that government has not revised any fees, charges or any other levies while on the other hand it has allocated generous budgetary allocations to the healthcare, education Social welfare, infrastructure sector which is being termed as the philosophy of the budget as well as the top priorities of the government. According to Dr. Mohammed Khalfan bin Kharbash, Minister of State for Financial and Industrial Affairs said there has been substantial increase in the size of budget this year comparing with last year as allocations have been raised to previous year's actual expenditures.

I think there's something important missing from this story. What is the source of revenue? Has the growth in the economy been large enough to cover the expenditures from growth in "unrevised" fees, charges and levies? That seems improbable.

Note that 24-years ago is 1981.