Balance of Payments: Large Imbalance Continues

The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBBH) has published data on balance of payments transactions for 2012. According to these data, the current account deficit amounted to KM 2.45 billion or 9.5% of the estimated GDP.

Regarding the deficit amount, there were actually no changes related to 2011, what means that the local economy still has a prominent imbalance in the exchange with  foreign countries.  The deficit amount is still lower than the record amounts before the crisis (in 2008, deficit amounted to KM 3.51 billion), but it increased compared to 2009 and 2010, when the deficit  recorded a large decline,  due to the recession and decreased  economic activities  in the country.

The main reason for the deficit is a large imbalance in the foreign trade exchange of goods,  amounting to KM 8.44 billion (according to balance of payments treatment) and which increased by KM 98.9 million related to 2011. Thanks to sufficient inflows of funds from foreign countries, which provided financing of the current account deficit, there was no decrease of the foreign exchange reserves. They increased by KM 72.7 million.

Detailed data on the balance of payments for 2012 are available on the official CBBH web site- http://www.cbbh.ba/. Since 2012, BH balance of payments statistics has been prepared according to the new international methodology standards (the IMF Manual, sixth edition (BPM6).

By the introduction of this methodology in 2012, the CBBH has become one of the first institutions in Europe (EU countries plan to introduce it from 2014), and also in the world (next to Australia, Brazil), which has managed to apply the new methodology in its work.

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