20 May 2016 Press Release
Euro area monthly balance of payments (March 2016)
In March 2016 the current account of the euro area recorded a surplus of €27.3 billion.[1]
In the financial account, combined direct and portfolio investment recorded increases of €74 billion in assets and €52 billion in liabilities.
Current account
The current account of the euro area recorded a surplus of €27.3 billion in March 2016 (see Table 1). This reflected surpluses for goods (€31.0 billion), services (€6.9 billion) and primary income (€2.3 billion), which were partly offset by a deficit insecondary income (€12.9 billion).
The 12-month cumulated current account for the period ending in March 2016 recorded a surplus of €322.0 billion (3.1% of euro area GDP), compared with one of €274.5 billion (2.7% of euro area GDP) for the 12 months to March 2015 (see Table 1 and Chart 1).
This positive development was mostly due to an increase in the surplus for goods (from €266.8 billion to €328.0 billion) and, to a lesser extent, a decrease in the deficit for secondary income (from €139.5 billion to €131.9 billion). These were partly offset by decreases in the surpluses for both services (from €71.5 billion to €67.3 billion) and primary income (from €75.7 billion to €58.6 billion).
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