Page 54 - bne IntelliNews Southeastern Europe Outlook 2025

The net primary income posted a €9.1mn surplus, decreasing by 86.4% y/y. Net secondary income decreased 4.7% y/y to €215.8mn. The services account surplus decreased 6% y/y to €488.2mn.
The financial account posted a €494.8mn deficit, versus a deficit of €147.7mn a year earlier. Net foreign direct investment was -€245.4mn versus -€257.5mn a year earlier.
At the same time, Montenegro’s foreign trade gap amounted to €2.92bn in the first ten months of 2024, up by 10.6% y/y, according to the latest available statistics office data. The export-import coverage ratio was 14.1%, versus 17.6% a year ago.
Montenegro’s imports went up by 6.3% y/y to €3.4bn, while exports dropped by 15% y/y to €479.8mn. The majority of exports consisted of mineral fuels, lubricants and related minerals, while imports consisted of machines and transport equipment.
Montenegro's total external trade in goods in the first ten months was €3.88bn, indicating an increase of 3.1% in comparison with the previous year. The country exported mainly to Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Slovenia.
3.8 External Environment – North Macedonia
North Macedonia’s external trade deficit deepened by an annual 15% to €2.6bn in the first ten months of 2024, compared with a gap of nearly €2.3bn in the same period in 2023, preliminary statistics office data indicated. In US dollar terms the deficit amounted to over $2.8bn.
Exports dropped by an annual 5.5% to €6.6n, while imports moved down by 0.5% to €9.2mn in the year's first ten months.
The coverage of imports by exports stood at 71.5%.
Regarding foreign trade partners, Germany, the UK, Greece, China and Serbia were the most important countries for North Macedonia's total external trade volume.
Trade by products reveals that the largest share of exports consists of catalysts with precious metals or their compounds on supports, ignition conductor sets for vehicles, aircraft, or ships, parts of seats and other supported catalysts.
On the import side, the largest share is dominated by petroleum oils and oils derived from bituminous minerals (excluding crude), other platinum group metals and their alloys, platinum and platinum alloys and precious metals in colloidal form, as well as organic or inorganic compounds of precious metals and amalgams of precious metals.
The current account moved from a surplus in 2023 to a deficit in the first half of 2024, as the merchandise trade balance deteriorated and remittances declined. In 2023, the country managed to post a current account surplus of €95.3mn, a sharp reversal from the substantial €797.4mn deficit it recorded in 2022.
54 SE Outlook 2025 www.intellinews.com