Saudi Arabia, UAE boost spending to shield citizens from inflation | Reuters
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are boosting state spending on social welfare by billions of dollars as they seek to shield their citizens from rising living costs.
The UAE is doubling the financial support it provides to low-income Emirati families to 28 billion dirhams ($7.6 billion) to help them with soaring inflation in the Gulf state, while Saudi Arabia's King Salman ordered a 20 billion riyal ($5.33 billion) allocation.
The kingdom will reopen registration for the programme known as Citizens Account and allocate 8 billion riyals in additional funding for it through the end of the year.
Another 2 billion riyals will go to one-off payments to social insurance beneficiaries and 408 million riyals to a programme that supports small livestock breeders.
The UAE's expanded budget allocation, reported by state news agency WAM on Monday, includes increasing existing benefits and establishing new ones targeted at mitigating the impact of inflation on food prices, and rising fuel and household energy costs.
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