2025-03-24
Today, Lietuvos bankas released the balance of payments data for the fourth quarter of 2024, which shows that:
the surplus on the current account balance (CAB) dropped by 15.1%, compared to the third quarter of 2024, amounting to €399.9 million, or 2.0% of gross domestic product (GDP). This development was mainly influenced by a decrease of €548.8 million in the deficit on primary income balance. Exports of goods went down faster than imports (by 6.2% and 1.0% respectively) and caused the foreign trade deficit to go up by 41.9%; it amounted to €1.6 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, as imports of services (10.3%) grew faster than exports (3.3%), the surplus on the balance of services decreased by 7.4% and stood at €2.1 billion;
.png) |
.png) |
.png) |
the deficit on primary income balance decreased by a factor of 4.8 to €144.4 million. This was influenced by the surplus on other primary income balance (€493.2 million) generated due to bigger agriculture subsidies from the European Union (EU);
the deficit on secondary income balance decreased by €16.1 million to €8.5 million due to bigger EU financial support received by the general government as well as larger current transfers in other sectors.
For comparison: a year ago, the CAB was also in surplus and stood at €273.8 million, or 1.4% of GDP at current prices (see Chart 1);
the surplus of the capital account balance increased by a factor of 2.7 quarter on quarter, amounting to €550.1 million. This was a result of increased transfers from EU structural support funds allocated for financing investment projects. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the surplus on the capital account balance amounted to €484.9 million;
over the reporting period, the net flow of financial account investment was negative and amounted to €890.5 million, or -4.4% of GDP. This was due to negative net flows of other investment and direct investment (€2.1 billion and €838.6 million respectively), which were not offset by the increase in official reserve assets (€1.5 billion) and a positive net flow of portfolio investment (€589.2 million).
For comparison: in the fourth quarter of 2023, the net flow of financial account investment was positive and amounted to €33.7 million, or 0.2% of GDP at current prices (see Chart 2);
the net international investment position was positive and amounted to €364.8 million, or 0.5%, at the end of the fourth quarter. It was negative a year ago, amounting to €3.4 billion, or -4.6% of GDP at current prices;
at the end of the reporting period, Lithuania’s gross external debt stood at €60.9 billion, or 78.1% of GDP, whereas the net external debt amounted to -€9.3 billion, or -11.9% of GDP, i.e. Lithuania’s assets abroad exceeded foreign liabilities.
For comparison: a year ago, Lithuania’s gross external debt amounted to €51.1 billion, or 69.2% of GDP, while its net external debt was
-€7.6 billion, or -10.3% of GDP.
Chart 1. CAB and its composite flows as a percentage of GDP
.png)
Chart 2. Net financial account investment flows as a percentage of GDP
.png)
It should be noted that, when calculating the balance of payments data for the fourth quarter of 2024, the balance of payments data as well as international investment position data for the first to third quarters and January to December 2024 were revised.
Detailed data on the balance of payments and international investment position as well as external debt is available on Lietuvos bankas’ website (under External statistics).
Use the My Datasets tool to create your own data sets, which are saved in your account and automatically updated as soon as they are published.
Download in PDF (89.4 KB download icon)