The current account surplus appears narrower than reported previously

RUSSIA ECONOMICS - In Brief 09 Jun 2023 by Evgeny Gavrilenkov

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The CBR published its updated estimates of selected items of the current account for 4M23 and the 5M23 data. It appears that reality now looks somewhat different relative to the previous perception. According to the CBR’s release a month ago, the current account surplus in April and 4M23 was $5.2 bn and $22.6 bn. The 4M23 trade surplus was $41.5 bn. The new numbers suggest that the 4M23 trade surplus was $36.5 bn, and the current account was $17.6 bn. According to the CBR’s latest version, the trade surplus in April was $7.8 bn, while the current account surplus was a mere $2.3 bn. Generally, it means that the 5M23 current account surplus looks similar to this surplus reported a month ago for 4M23. The recent estimate of the 5M23 trade surplus is only slightly higher than that reported for 4M23 previously.  These revisions are rather significant to be ignored as they must affect the forecast for the year as a whole. Later this month, we plan to account for all the recently revised data and produce the updated macroeconomic view for 2023.