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UAE population up by 65% in four years

The UAE’s population has grown exponentially to 8.26 million in mid-2010, a growth of 64.5% in four years, as strong economic growth attracted workers from all over the world.

According to latest population estimates put out by the National Bureau of Statistics on last Thursday, the population of Emiratis have increased by 96,833 to 947,997, or 11.47 per cent, in the last four years.

The bureau has based its estimates on administrative records of the Ministry of Interior and data on births and deaths obtained from the Ministry of Health.

Abu Dhabi, the largest emirate in terms of land mass, has the biggest population of 404,546, or 42 per cent, of the UAE nationals also.

The bureau said that population in mid-2010 was estimated using the model of exponential growth between 2008 and 2009 due to lack of actual population figures.

It said that population census, which was scheduled to take place in April 2010 was not conducted. Indians, Pakistanis and others form majority of the population in the country.

The UAE’s expatriate population was 7.266 million in mid-2009, just before the economic meltdown happened, which rose to 7.31 million in mid-2010, showing an increase of 49,458 despite the fact that thousands of jobs were eaten up by the economic crisis.

However, the economy is on recovery mode since then, after a brief period of slow growth, due to the impact of the global economic crisis.

Dubai’s economy may grow six per cent in 2012 after expanding 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent this year, Farouk Soussa, Citigroup Inc’s chief economist for the Middle East, said last week.

“The UAE’ economy is expected to grow closer to 4 per cent this year,” according to Mohammed Lahouel, chief economist at Dubai’s Department of Economic Development.

The new statistics show net migration inflows dropped from 1.15 million in 2007 and 1.8 million in 2008 to a mere 57,793 people in 2009, when the UAE economy contracted by 2.5 per cent.

haseeb@khaleejtimes.com