The Central Bank of Iceland will today publish on its website preliminary statistics for the balance of payments in the fourth quarter of 2006 and the year as a whole, and for the external position at the end of 2006.

The deficit on the current account was 91 b.kr. in Q4/2006. Over the whole of 2006, the current deficit amounted to 305.4 b.kr. compared to 164.8 b.kr. the year before. There was a deficit on all current accounts: goods, services, income and current transfer, both in Q4 and over the year. The balance on income deteriorated most sharply in 2006, with expenditures more than doubling year-on-year, mainly due to higher interest rates in international markets. Large profits of domestic companies owned by non-resident investors also play a major part, since these are measured as expenditure on the income account and are reinvested at the same time in the companies, i.e. appear as direct foreign investment in Iceland.

The press release with tables in a pdf-file.

No. 3/2007
March 6, 2007