2021-05-14
Today, the Bank of Lithuania published the balance of payments for March 2021, which shows that:
After quite a long time, the current account balance (CAB) turned from surplus to deficit and amounted to €79.7 million. This was determined by a substantial increase in deficits of foreign trade and primary income balances (see Chart 1). A faster growth of imports (28.3%), compared to exports (13.7%), significantly increased the foreign trade balance deficit, which stood at €326.8 million. As the imports of services rose more than their exports (by 16.3% and 9.7% respectively), the surplus of the balance of services went down (by 0.8%) and amounted to €350.2 million. Due to the rise in investment income balance expenditure, the deficit on the primary income balance increased as well;
The secondary income balance turned from deficit to surplus, amounting to €36.3 million. Transfers from European Union (EU) support funds (€26.7 million) declined by 27.2%, whereas Lithuania’s calculated contributions to the EU budget (€28.0 million) went down 3 times, compared to February. Personal transfers from abroad amounted to €49.3 million, a month-on-month increase of 3.9%. Personal transfers from Lithuania stood at €17.3 million, remaining the same as in February;
The positive net flow of financial account investment (€168.7million) resulted from the positive net flows of other and direct investment, which were not offset by the decrease in official reserve assets and the negative net flow of portfolio investment resulting from the redemption of the Government’s eurobond issue (see Chart 2).
Chart 1. CAB and its composite flows
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Chart 2. Net financial account investment flows
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Detailed data for March 2021 is available on the Bank of Lithuania website (External statistics).
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