In the third quarter of 2010, compared with the third quarter of 2009, there was an increase in the deficit of the goods account (-28.4bn compared with -18.6bn) and of the current transfers account (-15.7bn compared with -14.3bn). The surplus of the services account rose (+21.1bn compared with +15.5bn), while the deficit of the income account turned into surplus (+3.3bn compared with -8.7bn).

The surplus recorded in the services account (+21.1bn) is mainly the result of surpluses in “other business services”, which includes miscellaneous business, professional and technical services (+9.1bn), financial services (+6.7bn), transportation (+5.6bn) and computer & information services (+5.5bn), partially offset by deficits in travel (-4bn) and royalties & license fees (-3.1bn).

In the third quarter of 2010, the EU27 external current account recorded a surplus with the USA (+25bn), Switzerland (+11.2bn), Hong Kong (+4.5bn), Brazil (+3.7bn), Canada (+2.3bn) and India (+1.6bn), and a deficit with China (-44.2bn), Russia and Japan (both -7.4bn). 

Financial Account
In the third quarter of 2010, the EU27 made direct investments abroad of €17.2bn, compared with 78bn in the same quarter of 2009, while foreign direct investors made disinvestments in the EU27 of 6.6bn, compared with investments of 36.5bn in the same quarter of 2009. Portfolio investments recorded a net outflow of 9.4bn, compared with a net inflow of 40.8bn in the third quarter of 2009.

Current account of Member States (including intra-EU flows)
For the first time in this News Release, Eurostat is publishing data on the current account balances of the EU27 Member States.

As concerns the total (intra-EU plus extra-EU) current account balances of the EU27 Member States4, fourteen recorded surpluses and thirteen deficits in the third quarter of 2010. The highest surpluses were observed in Germany (+28.6bn), the Netherlands (+9.5bn) and Sweden (+5.4bn), and the largest deficits in the United Kingdom (-12.4bn euro), Italy (-10bn) and Spain (-9.3bn).

These provisional data, issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, are based on the information available at the time of publication and are subject to revision.