Higher surplus in current account balance

Published:

A high surplus on both the goods and service account and the income and current transfers account led to a higher surplus on the BOP current account from the 3rd to the 4th quarter of 2017.

Preliminary figures for 4th quarter 2017 show a surplus on the current account balance of NOK 35 billion. For the year 2017, the surplus ended at NOK 168 billion. This is NOK 50 billion more than the previous year. The balance of goods and services had a stronger development than the balance of income and current transfers measured from the previous year, but both had a positive growth.

Export and imports

Exports of goods and services in the fourth quarter of 2017 ended at NOK 305 billion. This is NOK 35 billion more compared to the previous quarter, and NOK 11 billion more compared to the same quarter the year before.

The preliminary total import in the 4th quarter last year was NOK 281 billion, which is about NOK 11 billion more than the 3rd quarter, and NOK 19 billion more than the same quarter in 2016.

For more information about exports and imports, including price and volume considerations and seasonal adjustments, please see the quarterly national accounts.

The balance of income and current transfers

The balance of income and current transfers in the fourth quarter decreased by NOK 10 billion compared to the previous quarter and NOK 7 billion compared to the same quarter in the previous year. Despite this, the balance of income and current transfers of 2017 in total ended at NOK 102 billion, which is NOK 11 billion higher than 2016.

Revisions

Exports and imports

Exports and imports are revised for 2017

There have been some revisions of the exports of goods for the 3rd quarter. This revision is mostly due to an increase in crude oil and natural gas. In relation to imports of goods, revisions have been done on goods for crude oil and natural gas activity for the 1st to 3rd quarter. In the 3rd quarter, however, this revision is offset by a downward adjustment of other goods.

The export of services has been revised down by approximately NOK 4 billion in the 3rd quarter of 2017. This mainly concerns revisions of financial and business services, but also a downward revision of gross receipts in shipping in this quarter. Imports of services are revised down by NOK 2.5 billion in the 3rd quarter. This is mainly as a result of new statistics.

Income and current transfers

Income and current transfers have also been revised for the three first quarters of 2017. The biggest revisions are due to new calculations of reinvested earnings, but there have also been revisions on investment income. In total, the balance of income and current transfers has been revised up NOK 11 billion for the 1st to 3rd quarter.

Financial account

For the financial account, revisions have been made dating back to the first quarter of 2016.

 

Figure 1

Figure 1. The current account