Dubai’s Dewa H1 income up 9pct on higher sales

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, the emirate’s state-owned utility, said total comprehensive income for the first half of the year advanced 9 per cent as sales increased.

Income rose to Dh1.63 billion ($444.6 million), compared with Dh1.5bn a year earlier, according to a statement posted on Nasdaq Dubai’s website today. Revenue gained 42 per cent to Dh6.6bn.

Finance costs jumped almost tenfold in the period to Dh1.16bn on foreign currency losses and bank borrowings, the company said in the statement.

Dubai, the second-largest sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates after Abu Dhabi, is seeking to secure its long-term energy needs by encouraging investment and diversifying power sources to include clean coal, solar and nuclear. It plans to start the first electricity plant with private funds in 2015.

The company has no plans to raise power or water charges in coming years, the Secretary General of Dubai’s Supreme Council of Energy said earlier this month.