Deficit of the current account of the balance of payment for the 4th quarter of 2007 equaled 745.2 million USD, which is 2.5 times higher than the indicator for the same period of the year of 2006 and by 95.1% more than the data for the 3rd quarter.

Trading with goods is the biggest deficit component in the current account, the balance of which exceeded billion USD. This was conditioned by the high rate growth of import as compared to the export. In particular, in the 4th quarter of 2007 the volume of import has increased by 60.7% as compared to the same period of the last year and exceeded the indicator for the 3rd quarter by 31.5 percent. Export growth rate for the same period was 30.0 and 10.3 percent relatively. Such a sharp increase of import was partially conditioned by the significant growth of foreign investments in the 4th quarter of 2007 and during the reporting year as a whole.

Balance of service is positive and equals 4.0 million USD for the 4th quarter of 2007. From this amount the export of service is 298.1 million USD (it has reduced by 10.3% as compared to the last quarter and increased by 38.6% as compared to the 4th quarter of 2006) and the import of service – 294.1 million USD (this growth constituted 19.8% and 57.0% relatively). From service trading, the positive balance is characteristic to travel (55.5 million USD. It increased by 83.8% as compared to the 4th quarter of 2006 and decreased by 43.1% as compared to the 3rd quarter of 2007) and government service sectors (12.5million USD. It increased by 0.7% as compared to the same quarter of the last year and decreased by 32.8% as compared to the last quarter). With regards to tax, transportation and other business service sectors balance is negative (-33.8, -12.3 and -7.1 million USD relatively).

Balance of income is positive and it equaled 34.0 million USD in the 4th quarter of 2007. Income credit, the main part (84%) of which is the reimbursement of employees, reached 134.0 million USD, which is by 20% higher than the same indicator of 2006 and is 4.7% lower than the indicator for the last quarter. Debit of income is 100.0 million USD, which is 2.2 times higher than the indicator for the same period of 2006 and it is 1.1 % higher than the data for the 3rd quarter of 2007, 90.9% of which is the investment income.

Volume of current transfers is quite solid and together with the balance of service and balance of income it reduces the deficit of the current account caused by the goods’ balance. The balance of current transfers constituted 238.0 million USD in the 4th quarter of 2007, the inflow – 257.6 million USD and the outflow - 19.6 million USD.

Capital transfers for the 4th quarter of 2007 make 30.5 million USD and they are reduced by 30.1% as compared to the 3rd quarter. If we compare them to the 4th quarter of 2006, they are reduced by 64.5%.

Direct investments have increased by 72.5% in the 4th quarter of 2007 as compared to the same period of 2006 and constituted 582.5 million USD. According to the annual data, 56.5% growth of direct investments was reported in 2007 as compared to 2006. Such a sharp growth of investments is mostly conditioned by the privatization process and by investing in banking and entrepreneur sectors. Investment in the equity capital constituted 279.4 million USD. 87.4 million from this amount is a share of privatization, BP – 42.1 million USD, banking sector – 24.3 million USD and all the rest non-finance sectors – 125.6 million USD. Inflow of investments in the form of other capital or other types of loans was 270.2 million USD. The volume of the current reinvestment of the quarter equaled 33.2 million USD.

The number of portfolio investments is quite small, the net balance of which is 0.7 million USD.

Balance of other investments equaled 120.6 million USD in the reporting period, 24.8 million of which was the growth of assets and 145.4 million USD - the growth of obligations.

Reserve assets reduced by 125.1 million in the 4th quarter of 2007. It is the first case during the last four years when the reduction of reserve assets has been fixed. In the reporting period foreign currency reserves have reduced by 139.7 million USD and the SDR account has increased by 14.6 million USD.