The Bank of Greece announced today the current accounts deficit in January dropped by 19 million euros to a total of 295 million euros. According to the bank, this improvement has been attributed explicitly to the surplus of income balance. Furthermore the bank announced that there has been a minor drop in the surplus of the services balance and the current transactions balance.
The increase of the trade deficit by 105 million euros is in part due to the increase of net payment of fuel imports, which the trade deficit not including fuel was limited thanks to the overall reduction of import expenses compared to the reduction of export revenue.
The minor reduction of the services balance surplus is a result of the deterioration of “other” services (primarily insurance services) and was offset by the rise of net proceeds in transport (primarily maritime) and travel services.
Overall the travel expenses in Greece of non-residents increased by 22.4% compared to 2013, reflecting the 10.6% increase of non-resident arrivals, based on the Bank of Greece’s Border Report.
The surplus of the current transactions balance in January 2014 was 885 million euros, about 16 million euros less than in 2013. This has been attributed to the higher revenue from the redistribution of the ECB’s monetary income compared to January 2014.
