Balance of payments

BoP Current Account Balance SA £m

£ -12,088 m

2016 Q4

Release date:

31 March 2017

Next release:

30 June 2017

UK Balance of Payments, The Pink Book: 2016

What's in the bulletin?

• The deterioration in the current account balance in recent years, leading to a record deficit of 5.4% as a percentage of nominal GDP in 2015, was largely due to UK earnings on assets overseas falling relative to the earnings of foreign investors in the UK.
• In 2015, the UK recorded the largest current account deficit as a percentage of GDP among the G7 economies.
• UK exports grew faster than world exports in 2015, for the first time since 2006. Within this the UK has seen increased trade activity in goods with non-EU countries, with their share exceeding that of EU countries in the last four years.