Press Release - 8 July 2016 - Euro area quarterly balance of payments and international investment position (first quarter of 2016)
The current account of the euro area showed a surplus of €335.3 billion (3.2% of euro area GDP) in the four quarters to the first quarter of 2016.[1]
At the end of the first quarter of 2016 the international investment position of the euro area recorded net liabilities of €1.3 trillion (approximately 12% of euro area GDP).
Current account
The current account of the euro area showed a surplus of €60.6 billion in the first quarter of 2016, compared with €54.9 billion in the same quarter of 2015 (see Table 1). The increase in the current account surplus was due to increases in the surpluses for goods (from €74.1 billion to €81.3 billion) and services (from €6.9 billion to €8.8 billion) and a decrease in the deficit for secondary income (from €50.5 billion to €44.0 billion), which were partly offset by a decrease in the surplus for primary income (from €24.4 billion to €14.5 billion).
The increase in the surplus for services resulted from an improvement in the balances for the travel (an increase in the surplus from €0.6 billion to €1.6 billion),telecommunication, computer and information services (an increase in the surplus from €12.5 billion to €14.6 billion) and other business services (a decrease in the deficit from €3.1 billion to €1.8 billion) components. This was partly offset by a slight deterioration in the balances for all the other components.
In the four quarters to the first quarter of 2016 the current account of the euro area showed a surplus of €335.3 billion (3.2% of euro area GDP), compared with one of €269.6 billion (2.7% of euro area GDP) a year earlier. The rise resulted from an increase in the surplus for goods (from €275.6 billion to €361.6 billion) and a decrease in the deficit for secondary income (from €141.6 billion to €125.7 billion). These developments were partly offset by decreases in the surpluses for services (from €68.9 billion to €60.0 billion) and primary income (from €67.0 billion to €39.5 billion).
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