Greece: Current Account Development January-March 2015

There are some worrying signals in the latest Balance of Payments statistics published by the Bank of Greece. In BEUR:

		January-March			12 Months To
		2015	2014		March 2015	March 2014
Revenue from abroad
	Exports	5,0	5,4		23,1	22,3
	Services (e. g. tourism)	4,7	4,7		31,2	28,6
	Other income	2,5	3,0		6,3	6,8
	Current transfers	0,8	1,0		2,4	4,7
		----	----		----	----
	Total revenue from abroad	13,0	14,1		63,0	62,4
Expenses abroad
	Imports	9,2	10,0		40,6	39,6
	Services (e. g. tourism)	3,1	2,7		11,9	11,2
	Other expense (e. g. interest)	2,0	1,7		7,0	6,6
	Current transfers	0,9	0,9		2,9	2,8
		----	----		----	----
	Total expenses abroad	15,2	15,3		62,4	60,2
Net foreign deficit (current account)		-2,2	-1,2		0,6	2,2
Trade balance		-4,2	-4,6		-17,5	-17,3
Services balance		1,6	2,0		19,3	17,4
Other balance		0,5	1,3		-0,7	0,2
Current transfer balance		-0,1	0,1		-0,5	1,9
		----	----		----	----
Net foreign deficit (current account)		-2,2	-1,2		0,6	2,2

1) Revenues declined by 1,1 BEUR in the 1st quarter of 2015 relative to the previous year. That would have been less worrisome if it related to EU transfers. Some of it does but the bulk comes from a decline in 'normal' exports (excluding oil). Such exports declined by 8% in the 1st quarter.
2) What makes this even more worrisome is that 'normal' imports (exluding oil) jumped by 9%. Stale or declining exports and rising imports? Well, I have heard that before.
3) A 1 BEUR decline in the quarterly current account balance (particularly when it goes from negative to very negative) is not something which one can ignore. During the rolling 12-month period ending in March 2015, the current account balance deteriorated by 1,6 BEUR but was still positive. Now the rate of deterioration is far greater and we are in the negative range!