An incessant deficit in the Palestinian current account (goods, services, income, current transfers) reached $316 million in the third quarter of 2021, today said the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) in their joint report on the preliminary results of the Palestinian Balance of Payments for the third quarter.
This deficit in the current account was mainly triggered by the deficit of the trade balance of goods, which reached $1,464 million, as well as the deficit in the services balance, which amounted to $272 million, they said.
The surplus in income account (compensations of employees and investments income) amounted to $906 million. This surplus was due to compensations of the employees working in Israel, which reached $848 million. As for the received investments income, it amounted to $69 million; and was mainly caused by the income received on the portfolio investments abroad, in addition to the interest received on the Palestinian deposits in banks abroad.
The current transfers achieved a surplus value amounted to $514 million, a decrease of 1% compared to the previous quarter, said the PMA and PCBS in their report. The total transfers from abroad amounted to $602 million, of which 17% were the transfers to the government sector, while the percentage of the transfers to other sectors reached 83%. The donors’ current transfers constituted 13% of total transfers from abroad.
The preliminary results showed a surplus value for the capital and financial account amounting to $222 million, mainly caused by the surplus in the capital account which amounted to $114 million. There was an increase in the reserve assets at PMA, which amounted to $10 million, compared to an increase of $50 million in the previous quarter.
Source: Palestine news & Information Agency