The UAE’s federal budget has allocated AED1.61bn ($439m) for the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme in 2019.

For the 2018 federal budget the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme was allocated AED1.443bn. Altogether, there has been AED4.81bn allocated by the federal budget from 2017 through to 2019.

The UAE cabinet approved on 30 September a zero-deficit federal budget for the next three years (2019-21) with spending of AED180bn ($49bn).

The 2019 budget was unveiled with a total spending of AED60.3bn, a 17 per cent increase on the planned spending for 2018.

The cabinet said the focus of the spending for 2019 will be directly linked to citizens’ well-being, health and education. The planned expenditure includes 42.3 per cent for community development, 17 per cent for education development and 7.3 per cent for healthcare services.

The budget for 2018 was AED51.4bn, which was a 5.6 per cent increase on the budget for 2017.

The Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme was established in 1999 to provide housing for UAE nationals.

Construction contracts have been awarded on Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme projects this year. According to regional projects tracker MEED Projects, the local Dubco Construction has been awarded a $100m contract for building 341 villas in Al-Khawaneej in Dubai, and the local Aswar Engineering & General Company was awarded a $84m contract for 240 villas at Bateen al-Samar in Ras al-Khaimah.

The UAE said earlier this year that it plans to build 7,200 housing units costing AED7.2bn ($2bn) across the federation for local UAE nationals. The projects will be delivered by various government entities.