Higher tourist arrivals helped drive up Greece’s services balance surplus in the first seven months of 2024, according to figures for the balance of payments in January-July 2024 released by the Bank of Greece on Friday. It attributed the increase to, primarily, the travel balance and, secondarily, the transport and other services balances. Non-residents’ arrivals increased by 11.2% year-on-year and the relevant receipts rose by 5.6%, rising to 10.95 billion euros.
In spite of this, the central bank reported that in July 2024, the current account surplus decreased year-on-year due to a deterioration in the balance of goods, the balance of services and the primary income account, while the secondary income account improved slightly.
In January-July 2024, the current account deficit increased by 1.3 billion euros year-on-year and stood at 8.6 billion euros. This primarily reflected an increase of the goods deficit, as exports dropped while imports increased. At current prices, goods exports fell by 1.3% (‑4.3% at constant prices) and goods imports grew by 4.1% (4.8% at constant prices). More specifically, non-oil goods exports at current prices declined by 2.7%, while the corresponding imports increased by 5.4% (‑5.6% and 5.7% at constant prices, respectively).
In January-July 2024, the deficit of the combined current and capital account (which corresponds to the economy’s needs for financing from abroad) increased year-on-year and amounted to 9.1 billion euros.
Foreign direct investment in the same period showed a 978.1 million euro net flow under residents’ external assets and a 2.6 billion euros net flow under residents’ external liabilities, representing non-residents’ direct investment in Greece.
Under portfolio investment, a rise in residents’ external assets is mostly attributable to an increase of 3.3 billion euros in residents’ holdings of foreign bonds and Treasury bills. A rise in their liabilities is chiefly due to an increase of 6.1 billion euros in non-residents’ holdings of Greek bonds and Treasury bills and to a rise of 1.8 billion euros in non-residents’ holdings of Greek equities.
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
