The Balance of Payments provides information on the balances that an economy maintains with the rest of the world. The external economic relations of a country are made up of a very wide and diverse set of economic flows covering operations of different kinds (for example, sale and purchase of goods, travel, investments, loans…) that are conducted by different agents (families, companies, public sector...).
the current account balance is negative, something that has been dominant in the Spanish economy over the last three decades, with the exceptions of the years immediately after the devaluations of 1982 and 1992-1994. Our economy demands more than it is capable of producing.
The trade deficit is partially off-set by the surplus on the services balance. This surplus has always been the result of tourism and travel revenues being much higher than the payments
surplus on the capital account, the most important item of which is represented by the capital transfers received from European Union funds
The deficit on the current and capital account coincides, by accounting definition, with the surplus on the financial account (with the adjustment for errors and omissions), and indicates the net borrowing of the total economy. These needs are broken down in the financial account