Banks in the UAE wrote more letter of credit (L/C) business in April than they did in the previous three months according to a report recently released by the UAE Central Bank.

The report shows that the country's 24 national banks and 28 foreign banks wrote L/Cs valued at 111 billion UAE dirham (AED111 billion) in April compared with AED105.9 billion worth of L/Cs in March.

Recessionary impact

The UAE's banks wrote L/Cs worth AED143.5 billion during August 2008 at a time when the federation of seven emirates still believed it would not be severely impacted by the global recession.

Sliding L/C values from August last year until January this year underlined the reality that traders in the UAE had been affected by the financial crisis.

Gradual recovery

In January 2008, the value of L/Cs opened in the federation reached its lowest point at AED105.9 billion.

Since then the value of L/Cs opened has been recovering, albeit gradually to AED106 billion in February and AED107.4 billion in March.

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