Provisional figures for Malta’s external transactions show that during October-December 2017 the current account balance recorded a surplus of €328.3 million as compared to a surplus of €194.1 million in the comparable quarter of 2016.

Leading towards this surplus was primarily a positive net balance of the services account of €843.9 million marked by improvements in the net balances of the other services, travel and transport accounts, the National Statistics Office said.

Moreover, the secondary income account recorded a positive net balance of €60.3 million. These were partially outweighed by declines in the goods and primary income accounts of €328.6 million and €247.2 million respectively.

During the fourth quarter of 2017, the capital account registered a positive net balance of €0.8 million as compared to a positive balance of €11.6 million in 2016.

The financial account was shaped by net asset increases of €193.9 million, a decline in net balance of assets from €255.8 million over the December quarter of 2016. The development in the financial account balance was mainly the result of higher other investment assets and portfolio investment assets by €1,382.9 million and €1,199.3 million respectively partially outweighed by a decline in net direct investment assets.

As a direct effect of the above shifts in the statement, the reserve assets of the country increased by €24.9 million compared to a decrease of €57.5 million during the comparable quarter in 2016

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