Comments on the balance of payments and the international investment position in 2Q 2020

Published: 30/9/2020

As shown by the Comments on the balance of payments and the international investment position in 2Q 2020, the current and capital account of the balance of payments ran a deficit of EUR 0.3bn in the second quarter of 2020, which is a considerable worsening compared to the balanced balance recorded in the same period of the previous year . If the last four quarters are observed, the surplus in the current and capital account of the balance of payments in the period up to end-June 2020 stood at 5.6% of GDP, which is an increase of 0.8 percentage points from the entire 2019.

The financial account of the balance of payments recorded a net capital outflow of EUR 0.2bn, which is a decrease of EUR 0.4bn from the same period of the previous year. The net capital outflow resulted in a small improvement in the net international investments position, owing to a reduction in net debt liabilities of the domestic sectors. At the end of June 2020, the net international investment position stood at EUR‒26.4bn. However, the sharp fall in the nominal GDP in the second quarter led to a deterioration in the relative indicator, which stood at ‒51.0% of GDP at the end of June, an increase of 2.0 percentage points from the end of the first quarter. The international investment position equals the difference between domestic sectors' foreign assets and liabilities at the end of a period. The negative value of the net international investment position indicates that foreign liabilities of Croatian residents are greater than their foreign assets. Included are assets and liabilities based on debt instruments, equity investments, financial derivatives, and other instruments.

Comments on the balance of payments and the international investment position in 2Q 2020