UAE To Sell Bonds To Help Fund Budget - Official

The United Arab Emirates will sell federal bonds to help fund budgetary spending on infrastructure in the Gulf's second-largest economy and seek a sovereign rating for the first time, a top finance official told Zawya Dow Jones Sunday.

"The government is moving to a long term budgeting process and whatever we need will be done through a bond issuance," Younis Al Khoori, the Ministry of Finance's director general told Zawya Dow Jones in an exclusive interview. "The Federal government mandated the Ministry of Finance to start issuing a bond for a few purposes."

The U.A.E. may need to tap the bond market to help make up for a steep decline in oil revenues expected this year with average crude prices well below the near $99 a barrel achieved last year. Oil and gas exports account for about a third of the country's total economy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.