Provisional figures published by the National Statistics Office (NSO), for Malta’s external transactions show that during January-March 2018 the current account balance recorded a surplus of €390.5 million from a surplus of €247.2 million in the comparable quarter of 2017. Leading towards this surplus was primarily a positive net balance of the services account of €722.8 million marked by improvements in the net balances of the other services, travel and transport accounts. Moreover, the secondary income account recorded a positive net balance of €58.1 million. These were partially outweighed by declines in the goods and primary income accounts of €227.8 million and €162.6 million respectively.

During the first quarter this year, the capital account registered a positive net balance of €21.7 million, an increase of €4.1 million, when compared to a positive balance of €17.6 million in 2017.

The financial account was shaped by net asset decreases of €166.9 million, a decline in net balance of assets of €562.3 million over the March quarter last year. The development in the financial account balance was mainly the result of lower net direct investment assets and net portfolio investment assets by €2,236.7 million and €52.6 million respectively partially outweighed by an increase in net other investment assets. As a direct effect of the above shifts in the statement, the reserve assets of the country increased by €28.3 million compared to a decrease of €25.2 million during the comparable quarter in 2017.