Provisional figures for Malta's external transactions show that during October-December 2016 the current account balance recorded a surplus of €256.2 million as compared to a surplus of €113.3 million over the same quarter the previous year, an NSO report read.

Leading towards this surplus was primarily a positive net balance of the services account of €733.5 million marked by improvements in the net balances of the other services, travel and transport accounts. Moreover, the secondary income account recorded a positive net balance of €81.9 million.

These were partially outweighed by declines in the goods and primary income accounts of €386.8 million and €172.4 million respectively.

During the last quarter of 2016, the capital account registered a positive net balance of €36.5 million as compared to a positive balance of €8.2 million in 2015.

"The financial account was shaped by net asset increases of €636.3 million, an improvement in net balance of assets of €465.7 million over the last quarter of 2015. The development in the financial account balance was mainly the result of higher other investment assets and portfolio investment assets by €1,541.2 million and €1,404.2 million respectively partially outweighed by a decline in net direct investment assets," the NSO said. "As a direct effect of the above shifts in the statement, the reserve assets of the country decreased by €57.5 million compared to an decline of €18.0 million during the December quarter of 2015."