United Arab Emirates Government Bonds

The United Arab Emirates is a country in Western Asia. It is an elective monarchy formed from a federation of seven emirates every of which is governed by a Sheikh. The UAE has the most diversified economy in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies. The main sector of the economy is the oil sector.

The UAE bond market is represented by sovereign and national bonds.

The federal government of the UAE passed a law in 2018 allowing to begin issuing sovereign bonds. Sovereign bonds were firstly issued by the UAE Federal Government in October 2021, the federal government of the UAE has not issued any bonds before that in its history, but some of its seven emirates have taken the step of selling bonds in international markets, including the capital, Abu Dhabi, and the financial center, Dubai. The goal is to achieve the country's strategy (Building a yield curve for bonds contributing to the development of the bond market and finding investment alternatives for investors). The bonds have tranches of 10, 20, and 40 years. The 10-year notes were offered with initial price guidance of about 105 basis points (bps) over US Treasuries, the 20-year at about 135 bps over the same benchmark, and the 40-year at about 3.6 percent. The funds of these issues will be used to provide financing for infrastructure projects, with no more than 15% of their volume, the remaining 85% of the funds will be invested through the Emirates Investment Authority (the country's only federal sovereign wealth fund). The UAE Ministry of Finance is considering issuing green bonds in the coming period to keep pace with the state's direction to support the green economy. It is also working on plans to issue local currency bonds.

The issuance of bonds would support the creation of a secondary market for government debt instruments. This will help build a yield curve denominated in UAE dirhams that is used as a benchmark for local companies issuing debt instruments.

UAE National Bonds are issued by National Bonds UAE organization owned by the Investment Corporation of Dubai and initiated by the Government of Dubai with 50% ownership. The company offers a Sharia Compliant scheme for investing money, with an aim to provide low-risk savings to the people in UAE. National bonds scheme is available for all, including UAE Nationals (Emiratis) and resident expatriates. Anyone older than 21 years of age can purchase a national bond. The most common place to find a bond is at the post offices. Apart from post offices, there are more than 700 places in UAE where you can purchase these bonds.