Malta registered a current account surplus of €339 million during the third quarter of 2016, new figures from the National Statistics Office show. 

The surplus rose by more than €200 million over a 12-month period, with the corresponding figure from Q3 in 2015 being €120 million. 

Driving the surplus was a positive €944 million net balance of the services account, which was bolstered by improvements in the net balance of the other services, travel and transport accounts. The secondary income account registered a positive net balance of €62.9 million. 

Partially counterbalancing these gains, the goods and primary income account declined by €503.5 million and €164.3 million respectively. 

The capital account registered a positive net balance of €0.8 million during the third quarter of the year, as compared to a €2.2 million positive balance last year.

The financial account was shaped by net asset increases of €539.6 million as opposed to a negative net balance of assets of €567.6 million during the same quarter of 2015, the NSO said. 

It said the improvement in the financial account balance was mainly the result of higher other investment net assets partially outweighed by a decline in net direct investment assets.

Moreover, net portfolio investment registered an increase of €342.0 million. As a direct effect of this shift, the reserve assets of the country decreased by €8.5 million compared to an increase of €9.4 million during the September quarter last
year.