Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) Announce the Preliminary Results of the Palestinian Balance of Payments – First Quarter 2013

The Deficit in Current Account is USD 240.2 Million

The Balance of Payments (BOP) is an account measuring transactions between residents and non-residents in a given period. It is considered to be the peak of efforts in preparing systematic economic statistics that are necessary for observing economic performance in general and for deriving essential data used in compiling the Rest of the World Account as part of the Palestinian National Accounts. BoP consists of two main accounts, the Current Account and the Capital and Financial Accounts.

The main findings of the preliminary results of BoP for the First quarter of 2013 are including:

The incessant deficit of the Current Account amounted to USD 240.2 million (8.8 percent of the GDP at current prices for the 1st quarter of 2013) with a decrease of 63.5 percent compared to the previous quarter.  The deficit of Current Account was caused mainly by the deficit in the Trade Balance of goods which was USD 1,106.1 million (40.5 percent of the GDP at current prices) with a decrease of 4.6 percent compared to the previous quarter.

The deficit in Services Balance amounted to USD 97.1 million with a decrease of 12.9 percent compared to the previous quarter. This decrease was caused by the increase of the exports in travel services in addition to the decrease of the imports in transportation and travel services.

The surplus in Income Balance (compensations of employees and investments income) amounted to USD 292.9 million with an increase of 7.1 percent compared to the previous quarter, this surplus was due to a surplus in Compensations of Employees working in Israel that reached USD 271.0 million. While, the received investments income amounted to USD 28.6 million was mainly caused by the interest received on the Palestinian deposits in banks abroad.

According to the Current Transfers, the surplus value amounted to USD 670.1 million with an increase of 97.6 percent compared to the previous quarter.  The donors' current transfers was 65.5 percent of total value of receipts from abroad.

The surplus value of Capital and Financial Account amounted to USD 191.9 million was mainly caused by the surplus in Capital Account amounted to USD 144.2 million.

The changes on Reserve Assets flow (increased) amounted to USD 20.8 million at PMA.

PMA Table Q1-2013