Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) announce the  preliminary results of the Palestinian Balance of Payments – First Quarter 2014.

The Deficit in Current Account is USD 418.5 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 Account.

The main findings of the preliminary results of BoP for the first quarter of 2014 are including:

The incessant deficit of the Current Account amounted to USD 418.5 million (11.2 % of the GDP at current prices for the 1^st quarter of 2014) with an increase of 14.6% 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 1,293.1 million (34.6% of the GDP at current prices) with an increase of 14.9% compared to the previous quarter.

The deficit in Services Balance amounted to USD 94.8 million with an a decrease of 31.8% compared to previous quarter. This Decrease was caused by the increase of the export of travel services and the decrease of the imports of transport and travel services.

The surplus in Income Balance (compensations of employees and investments income) amounted to USD 411.2 million with an increase of            13.8% compared to the previous quarter, this surplus was due to a surplus in Compensations of Employees working in Israel that reached USD 366.5 million. While, the received investments income amounted to USD 35.9 million was mainly caused by the income and interest received on the Palestinian investments and deposits in banks abroad.

According to the Current Transfers, the surplus value amounted to USD 558.2 million with an increase of 3.7% compared to the previous quarter.  The donors’ current transfers was 35.7% of total value of receipts from abroad.

The surplus value of Capital and Financial Account amounted to USD 355.4 million was mainly caused by the surplus in Financial Account amounted to USD 275.4 million.

The changes on Reserve Assets flow (decreased) amounted to USD 95.9 million at PMA.

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issued on : 30/06/2014