Greece's current account deficit dropped a substantial 38.5 percent year-on-year in
December 2010, according to figures released on Friday by the Bank of Greece (BoG), the country's central bank.According to the BoG, in December 2010, the current account deficit fell substantially by €1,184 million or 38.5% year-on-year, reaching €1,890 million. This improvement is attributable mainly to a decrease in the trade deficit and - much less -- to a small rise in the surplus of the services balance. These developments more than offset an increase in the income account deficit and a decline in the current transfers balance.
The drop in the trade deficit by €1,323 million year-on-year was accounted for by decreases of €621 million in the trade deficit excluding oil and ships, and of €610 million and €92 million in the net import bill for oil and ships, respectively. Specifically, receipts from exports of goods excluding oil and ships remained virtually unchanged (-0.2%) year-on-year, while the import bill for goods excluding oil and ships dropped by 21.4% year-on-year. It should be noted that total receipts from exports of goods rose by 27.2% as a result of very large increases in receipts from oil exports and sales of ships.
source: ANA-MPA
