Germany continues to hold biggest global current account surplus
The German economy has reported a current account surplus of USD285bn (€257bn), according to latest data presented by the ifo Institute, representing again the biggest current account surplus worldwide.
The German surplus exceeds that of China, which this year reported USD190bn (€157.5bn) and Japan at USD 170bn (€140.9).
Key driver of Germany’s surplus was again the export of goods and a growth in demand particularly from other Eurozone countries. In the first half of 2017 alone, the German economy recorded a surplus of €134bn. Another factor were returns on assets invested abroad.
However, the ifo institute expects that the share of German surplus as percentage of the overall GDP is set to decline from 8.3% in 2016 to 7.9% in 2017 due to a rise in energy prices increasing the nominal costs of imports.
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