Poland's current-account balance was positive - for the third month in a row - in June and amounted to EUR 574mn vs. surplus of (revised) EUR 165mn a month earlier and a gap of EUR 1,092mn in June of 2012, according to the data of the National Bank of Poland (NBP). Market consensus was a surplus of EUR 226-336mn.
The central bank attributed the positive C/A figure to positive balance of current transfers (EUR 626mn), services (EUR 621mn) and trade in goods (EUR 561mn) as well as negative balance of income (EUR 1,234mn). The total balance of current and capital accounts was positive and amounted to EUR 1.185mn.
NBP reported that Poland's exports increased by 7.1% y/y to EUR 12,735mn in June of 2013. Imports noted a decline of 0.7% to EUR 12,174mn. In the entire 2012, exports increased by 4.2%, while imports were up by 0.9%.
Analysts hailed the rise of exports and noted that the simultaneous drop of imports meant that net export's contribution to GDP growth will be even higher than in recent quarters. At the same time, low imports also confirmed the prolonged weakness of domestic consumption demand. All in all, they stressed that the 12-month C/A deficit fell to around 1.9% of GDP after June (from 2.2-2.3% a month earlier) and was the lowest since 1995.
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