HK records BoP surplus of 71.5 bln HKD in Q3

Xinhua News Agency

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Hong Kong recorded a Balance of Payments (BoP) surplus of 71.5 billion HK dollars (about 9.22 billion U.S. dollars) (as a ratio of 11.6 percent to GDP) in the third quarter of 2015, Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department (C&S) announced on Monday.

The BoP surplus in the second quarter was 76.7 billion HK dollars (as a ratio of 13.5 percent to GDP). Reserve assets correspondingly increased by the same amount (71.5 billion HK dollars) in the third quarter.

On a year-on-year comparison, the current account recorded a surplus of 48.4 billion HK dollars (as a ratio of 7.9 percent to GDP) in the third quarter of 2015, compared with a surplus of 35 billion HK dollars (as a ratio of 6.0 percent to GDP) in the same quarter of 2014, mainly due to improvement of the goods balance.

The goods deficit decreased to 500 million HK dollars in the third quarter 2015, compared with the 24 billion HK dollars in the same quarter of 2014. This was due to a larger decrease in imports of goods relative to that in respect of exports of goods.

Over the same period, the services surplus decreased to 51.5 billion HK dollars in the third quarter of 2015, compared with the 57.1 billion HK dollars in the same quarter of 2014.

This was due to a larger decrease in exports of services relative to that in respect of imports of services. The overall balance on goods and services recorded a surplus of 51.0 billion HK dollars in the third quarter of 2015, compared with a surplus of 33.1 billion HK dollars in the same quarter of 2014.

On a seasonally adjusted quarter-to-quarter comparison basis, the current account credit and the current account debit in the third quarter of 2015 both decreased by 0.2 percent from the second quarter of 2015.