Dubai Municipality's spending on various infrastructure projects rose by 24.2 per cent over a period of three years, according to figures released by the civic body's Statistics Centre.

More than 60 per cent of the expenditure was related to road developments, said a report.

The municipality spent more than Dh1.475 billion ($401.6 million) last year on infrastructure projects including roads, drainage, irrigation, building, government housing, planning and horticulture projects.

Projects expenditure totalled more than Dh1.307 billion and Dh1.187 billion respectively in 1999 and 1998.

The statistics also show that Dubai Municipality's revenues for this period rose by 17 per cent to Dh1.152 billion in 2000 from Dh982.6 million in 1998.

Road projects claimed over Dh890 million in 2000, which means 60.32 per cent of the total projects expenditure that year.

Overall spending in this field increased by 40 per cent during the period from 1998 to 2000.

Spending on drainage and irrigation projects totalled more than Dh439 million in 2000.

In the building and government housing sector, total expenditure in 2000 was over Dh58.62 million which is nearly four per cent of the total project expenditure.

The municipality revenues, which rose by 17 per cent, were broken down into four major groups: general revenues, technical department revenues, health and environment department revenues and public transport revenues.

General revenues rose by 5.7 per cent to Dh788.5 million in 2000, from Dh746 million in 1998, while revenues from technical departments rose by 84.4 per cent to Dh246 million last year from Dh133.33 million in 1998.

Revenues of the health and environment departments dropped by 0.5 per cent from Dh65.24 million in 1998 to Dh64.9 million in 2000, while revenues from public transport rose by 39.27 per cent to Dh53 million in 2000 from Dh38 million in 1998.