You are on page 1of 1

A current account is the balance of:

Trade in goods
Trade in services
Net investment income from external assets
Net transfers.

Capital account captures inflows and outflows of different forms of capital

Portfolio investment e.g. money flowing into/out of stock markets, pension funds,
hedge funds etc.

Direct capital investment e.g. fixed investments in factories, short term banking flows

In principle a country running a current account deficit can balance things up by surplus of the
capital account. A country running current account surplus can run capital account deficit i.e.
invest heavily overseas or just accumulate foreign exchange reserves .
In principle BOP must balance. It does so because of adjustments that countries make to their
foreign exchange reserve using IMF agreed accounting measures and also because of the
balancing item which reflects errors and omissions.

You might also like