Eurozone current account surplus declines in August

The euro area current account surplus declined sharply in August, the European Central Bank said on Wednesday.

The current account surplus fell to 13 billion euros (15.1 billion dollars) in August from 23 billion euros in July.

The surplus on goods trade came in at 17 billion euros versus 26 billion euros a month ago.

At the same time, the balance on services trade showed a deficit of 1 billion euros compared to a surplus of 7 billion euros in the previous month.

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Primary income rose to 5 billion euros from 4 billion euros, while the deficit on secondary income narrowed to 8 billion euros from 14 billion euros in July.

In 12 months to August, the current account surplus totalled 328 billion euros or 2.8 per cent of euro area GDP, up from 176 billion euros or 1.5 per cent a year earlier.

In the financial account, euro area residents’ net acquisitions of non-euro area portfolio investment securities came in at 942 billion euros and non-residents’ net acquisitions of euro area portfolio investment securities totalled 129 billion euros in 12 months to August.