UAE dirham continues to appreciate against top trade partners’ currencies
abu dhabi — The UAE dirham has continued to appreciate in the first quarter of 2017 for the twelfth consecutive quarter, according to Central Bank of the UAE statistics.
With a few exceptions, the dirham appreciated against most of the UAE’s main trade partners. From the import side, the weighted dirham’s appreciation against its top-nine non-dollarised import partners, which claim 48.5 per cent of the UAE total imports, was 0.37 per cent in Q1 of 2017.
The UAE currency has appreciated against all its main import partners, with a simple average bilateral appreciation of 1.2 per cent during the first quarter of 20175 . The highest quarterly appreciation was against the Japanese yen, where the dirham gained around 3.6 per cent. Japan is contributing around 5.7 per cent in the total imports of the UAE. On the other hand, the dirham gained 1.2 per cent against the euro. Imports from Germany, Italy and France account altogether for more than 24 per cent of total imports.
The dirham gained also 0.7 per cent and 0.3 per cent against the Chinese yuan and the GB pound. As the top-one importer to the UAE, China is contributing 12.4 per cent to the total imports.
The most important recorded gains were against the GB pound (15.6 per cent), the Chinese yuan (5.3 per cent) and the euro (1.5 per cent) accounting for 27.8 per cent of total imports. However, on the non-oil export side, the dirham has appreciated against its top-nine non-dollarised export partners. The weighted appreciation was 0.63 per cent in Q1 2017 compared to the previous quarter. — Wam