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British expatriates in the UAE who regularly send money home have been feeling the squeeze as an empowered pound has risen against a diminished US dollar.
With Brexit uncertainty being supplanted by an economy plotting a positive course beyond Europe and the Covid-19 pandemic, the dollar-pegged UAE dirham has been buying noticeably less sterling in recent months.
And that could impact savings, purchasing power or render UK-domiciled bills more burdensome for some Britons in the UAE.
In early trading on Tuesday, sterling rose 0.2 per cent to $1.4240 after briefly hitting $1.4248 against the greenback – its highest level in three years and marking a second straight monthly gain of 2.8 per cent in May, according to Reuters.
A new study has revealed that foreign travellers made 11.1 million visits to the UK in 2020, a 73 per cent decline than in 2019 in the wave of the border restriction imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The dramatic impact of Covid-19 on the number of UK-bound travellers was revealed for the first time in the study published on Monday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Xinhua news agency reported. During 2020, overseas residents spent 6.2 billion pounds ($8.76 billion) on their visits to the UK, 78 per cent less than in 2019, ONS said. Meanwhile, UK residents made 23.8 million visits abroad in 2020, 74 per cent less than the previous year and they spent 13.8 billion pounds on such travels, 78 per cent less than in 2019.