JA measures current account surplus in Feb
JAMAICA recorded a current account surplus in February as the rise in goods exports coupled with a decline in the value of imports and higher remittances and tourism dollars resulted in a positive balance.
Recently released data from the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) showed that the current account recorded a surplus of US$37.1 million in February 2010, an Improvement of US$62.9 million relative to the deficit in February 200).
“This improvement largely stemmed from respective increases of US$11.7 million and US$7.1 million in earnings from mineral fuel and chemical exports,” said the report issued last week by the BOJ. “In addition, there were declines in spending on imports of machinery and transport equipment and food of US$19.8 million (30.0 per cent) and US$19.5 million (29.0 per cent), respectively. The impact of the fall in spending on these imports was, however, partly offset by an expansion of US$23.6 million (27.4 per cent) in spending on fuel imports influenced by a 94.7 per cent increase in the price of oil on the international market relative to February 2009.”
There were also improvements in the services, income and net current transfers sub-accounts.
Lower imports also led to a decline in net transportation payments while the narrowing of the deficit on the income account was largely attributed to lower interest payments on official external debt, while the increase in net inflows from current transfers reflected growth of 9.7 per cent in gross remittance inflows.
Even then net official capital inflows along with the current account surplus were insufficient to offset net private investment outflows and the capital account deficit resulting in a US$6.3-million reduction in the net international reserves of the BOJ.
The surplus in February was higher than the deficit in January, which led to an overall surplus of US$10.8 million for the first two months of 2010.
The reduction in the NIR was even higher in January –US$163.4 million — but the gross reserves were buoyed by the disbursement of SDR 414.3 million, equivalent to US$640 million from the IMF under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) on 04 February 2010.
At end-February 2010 amounted to US$2,271.8 million representing 17.2 weeks of projected goods and services imports.
