Italy Current Account Surplus Rises For First Time Since April

Italy's current account surplus increased for the first time in four months in July, mainly due to the strong performance of the goods balance and a recovering tourism surplus, preliminary figures from the Bank of Italy showed on Friday.

The current account surplus rose to EUR 9.308 billion from EUR 8.744 billion in the same month last year.

The visible trade surplus grew to EUR 9.765 billion from EUR 7.953 billion.

The services trade surplus was EUR 7 million versus EUR 1.528 billion in the same month a year ago.

The tourism surplus, which is recovering, was about a third of the value in the corresponding month of the previous year, the bank said.

Surplus in the primary income grew to EUR 1.341 billion from EUR 857 million. The shortfall in the secondary income account widened to EUR 1.805 billion from EUR 1.594 billion.

The deficit in the capital account narrowed to EUR 58 million from EUR 125 million. The surplus in the financial account shrunk to EUR 2.377 billion from EUR 12.997 billion.

In the twelve months ending in July, the current account surplus was EUR 48.1 billion, or 2.8 percent of GDP, versus EUR 46.7 billion in the corresponding period of 2019.

The improvement was mainly due to the widening of the goods surplus, while a negative contribution came from the worsening in the services deficit and the lower primary income surplus, the bank said.