Lower goods trade surplus leads to slight c/a deficit in December
Hungaryʼs surplus in trade of goods shrank to EUR 124 million in December, or about a quarter of the previous two months, giving the countryʼs current account an unusual deficit of EUR 42 mln, monthly preliminary balance of payments data published by the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) on Tuesday show, as reported by Hungarian news agency MTI.
The monthly surplus in trade of services also fell, by EUR 20 mln to EUR 421 mln. The other main items of the current account were little changed: net transfers from those employed abroad came to EUR 251 mln, while net investment income outflow reached EUR 831 mln.
With a capital account surplus of EUR 56 mln, net external financing capacity reached a moderate EUR 14 mln, far below the EUR 586 mln in October and EUR 380 mln in November.
Capital transfers from the European Union stood at EUR 87 mln, well below the EUR 225 mln arriving in October, but double the amount in November.
Overall net transfers from the EU reached EUR 175 mln in December, up EUR 54 mln from November but down from almost EUR 300 mln in October.
The monthly data show that government payouts of advances to winners of EU funding accelerated in December when "other government receivables" - the item including such advances on the financial account - reached EUR 514 mln, rising from EUR 437 mln in November.
At the same time, the volume of EU funding received by the government from Brussels but not yet paid to grant winners also rose after a EUR 145 mln drop in October. This funding on government accounts rose by EUR 254 mln in November and by EUR 613 mln in December.
Net liabilities of Hungary on direct capital investments rose by EUR 1.26 bln in December alone. Only EUR 75 mln of the EUR 1.37 bln of foreign direct capital inflow was investments, while more than half was reinvested profit and EUR 530 mln was in FDI in the form of debt instruments. Hungarian companies invested EUR 34 mln of new FDI abroad, reinvested EUR 88 mln in foreign units, and were repaid a slight EUR 3 mln on loans.
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