Standard & Poor’s

S&P Sovereign Risk Indicators Database Shows The Eurozone Is The World’s Largest Capital Exporter

The eurozone will record the largest current account surplus in the world in 2015 at $358 billion, according to Standard & Poor’s enhanced free database for Sovereign Risk Indicators (SRI) released today (see below for access details). See also The Eurozone Is The World’s Largest Capital Exporter, According To S&P Sovereign Risk Indicators Database, published today on RatingsDirect, and watch the related CreditMatters TV segment, titled: “Sovereign Risk Indicators Show External Imbalances Remain High,” dated May 21, 2015).
The eurozone surplus is 62% larger than that of second-placed China, and also exceeds the surplus of China, all six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Japan combined ($354 billion).
This represents a significant turnaround since 2007, the year before the onset of the global financial crisis. At that time, China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Russia were the most important surplus countries, generating a combined current account surplus of $731 billion. The surplus of the eurozone stood at a modest $19 billion, as the current account surpluses of Germany and The Netherlands, among others, were largely offset by the large deficits in the so-called periphery.
In contrast, on the deficit side there has been less change. The U.S. remains the “consumer of last resort” with the largest deficit in 2015 of $351 billion. The U.K., Australia, Turkey, Mexico, India, and South Africa have also been regularly on the top-10 deficit list throughout the past decade. The deficits of Brazil and Canada have only recently reached very high levels in absolute terms, making the economies No. 3 and No. 5, respectively, on the deficit list.
While the ranking of surplus countries has changed over the past decade, the overall size of the global imbalances remain large and little changed. The sum of the current account surpluses of all surplus countries in a given year has declined by only 7% since 2007 (and 3% since 2011) to remain at close to $1.2 trillion in 2015. And while the combined deficits of all deficit countries declined by 11% between 2007 and 2011, they have remained virtually unchanged in 2015 ($993 billion) compared to 2011.

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