Portugal's current account deficit widened sharply to EUR 1.56 billion in May 2019 from EUR 1.16 billion in the same month last year, as the goods deficit increased to EUR 1.28 billion from EUR 1.01 billion and the primary income gap rose to EUR 2.21 billion from EUR 2.05 billion. In addition, the services surplus narrowed to EUR 1.60 billion from EUR 1.69 billion a year earlier despite a slight gain in tourism revenues (EUR 1.63 billion from EUR 1.60 billion), while the secondary income surplus increased to EUR 0.32 billion from EUR 0.21 billion, even though migrants' remittances were little changed (EUR 0.28 billion from EUR 0.29 billion). Considering the first five months of the year, the current account deficit widened to EUR 3.15 billion from EUR 1.88 billion in the same period of 2018. Current Account in Portugal averaged -763.60 EUR Million from 1996 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 1105.17 EUR Million in July of 2016 and a record low of -2590.60 EUR Million in June of 2010.
Current Account in Portugal is expected to be 551.00 EUR Million by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Current Account in Portugal to stand at -100.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Portugal Current Account is projected to trend around -120.00 EUR Million in 2020, according to our econometric models.