BRATISLAVA, December 1, (WEBNOVINY) — Preliminary data of the National Bank of Slovakia show that the deficit on Slovakia’s current account of the balance of payments in September was EUR 65.9 million. In a yearly comparison, the results improved by over EUR 38 million. Compared with August, the gap narrowed by as much as EUR 377 million.
In September, all components of the current account but the trade balance posted a deficit. Trade balance returned to positive figures in September with a surplus of EUR 63 million, from an almost EUR 250 million deficit in August. The balance of receipts reported the biggest gap of EUR 66.6 million. The deficit on the balance of services was EUR 36.8 million and current transfers posted a deficit of EUR 25.5 million.
The central bank commented that the monthly narrowing of the deficit on the current account was influenced in particular by a change of the August deficit in the trade balance into a September surplus. Also, the improvement of the balance on the current account is attributable to the lower deficit of the balance of current transfers resulting from higher drawing of EU funds. The remaining two components of the current account changed only minimally in the ninth month, the central bank said.
In September, the dynamics of the year-on-year growth of exports slowed further, namely by 2.2 points m/m to 19 percent. The volume of exports exceeded EUR 4 billion, under the influence of the summer holiday season. The dynamics of imports decreased by 13.3 points to 25.4 percent. This contributed to a m/m improvement in the balance of foreign trade. The achieved trade balance in September was in line with the central bank’s expectations, on moderately higher volumes of export and import, the central bank concluded in its monthly report.
SITA
