The 'mystery' of current account balance

09 Aug, 2018

Business Recorder op-ed writer Dr Hafiz Pasha is extremely good at figures; in fact his writings offer to his readers more objective analyses than candid 'expert' comments. In one of his recent articles, he said that "Pakistan finds itself today between the devil and the deep blue sea. The external balance of payments position has greatly worsened over the last two years. The combined current account deficit for these two years has risen sharply to $30 billion". Why didn't he deem it necessary to translate or convert the figure of $30 billion of combined current account deficit of these two years into the percentage of country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? Is it true that trade deficits are neither good nor bad for a national economy?
I look forward to reading his deep insights into the subject of economics and finance for my own understanding and learning because different experts or scholars draw insights from many and even divergent ways about a current account balance.

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