Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Government-controlled companies in Dubai owe about $70 billion in foreign-currency loans and bonds, making the sheikdom the biggest borrower in the United Arab Emirates, according to Fitch Ratings Ltd.

Fitch's estimates are higher than those of Moody's Investors Service, which said last month state-run firms in Dubai owe at least $47 billion, more than the sheikdom's gross domestic product.

The global economic slowdown may hit Dubai harder than the other six emirates -- Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain -- because it borrowed more to finance the transformation from a Persian Gulf trading post to a financial and tourist hub and has only 4 billion barrels of oil reserves.

``Dubai is the most indebted, with approaching $70 billion of identified foreign-currency loans and bonds outstanding,'' London-based Fitch analysts Richard Fox and Charles Seville wrote in a report released yesterday on the U.A.E.'s total external debt. ``The global credit crunch has focused attention on the ability to refinance outstanding debt.''

The emirates publish no official figures on their external debts. Dubai-based companies had about $11 billion of loans maturing in the final quarter of 2008, some of which has already matured or been refinanced, Fitch said.

Abu Dhabi-based firms owed about $50 billion in foreign currency loans and bonds as of September, Fitch estimated.

The U.A.E's gross external debt was $170 billion as of June, up from $145 billion at the end of 2007. Banks owed about 60 percent of the U.A.E's total external debt, according to Fitch.

To contact the reporter on this story: Haris Anwar in Dubai on hanwar2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 1, 2008 06:03 EDT