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The fall of imports have reduced Lebanon's balance of payments deficit from $1,932.1 millions US dollars to $675.2 US dollars. Movement of imports and exports are the most significant variable affecting the balance of payments. The slowdown of Lebanon's economic activity results in lower imports and therefore lowering the deficits in the balance of payments. Imports to Lebanon is usually higher than its exports, but this had changed in 2013. Lebanon's exports of banking, educational and health services have increased. Deposit inflows had increased by 11 percent compared to last year. This article clearly relates to the Balance of Payments. Here, Lebanon's movement of goods in and out of its country pay a major role in determining the Balance of Payments. Obviously, these imports and exports are a part of the current account, which includes the balance of trade in goods (visible trade balance) and balance of trade in services (invisible balance). Lebanon sees an increase in services, which means that there could be an improve balance of trade in services.

This article is about the drop in balance of payment deficit in Egypt in 2012. Balance of payment deficit is when the import of goods and services exceed the export of goods and services. A bank of the country says that such a situation has occurred because of the large number of Egyptian laborers working abroad, especially in countries in The Gulf. We know that in theory, the balance of payments should equal 0. Although balance of payment deficit dropping is a good thing, economists still say that this is still a pressure on the Egyptian government and they will have to strike a deal with the IMF.

This article is ripe for examination as it presents the point of view of many different nations. The primary focus in the situation in Chile, put it allows us to see the perspective of a major currency trader (the AG) as well as the perspective of China, Chile's major trading partner. Moreover, we get to see the rational behind the valuation of currency, in this case related to commodities.

I enjoyed this article due to the fact that it was in a different light. Most of all the other articles are written in negative aspects but this one looks at the positives of how the Chilian peso is going to recover. It also shows us how important exports are to certain countries as they depend on them, in this case copper , to stabalize the economy.

It is an article related to the balance of payments topic. This article reports the situation of the US current account. The US current account is facing a deficit because they country is importing more than they export. The US needs many imported products and commodities to meet the consumers demand. This demand for products and commodities from foreign countries (especially oil) has been rising for the last 20 years and so has the US current account deficit.

This article talks about the trade surplus of Germany. According to one German worker's statement, Germans work hard to make all their exports. However, the data shows that Germany makes as much exports as the US, but it imports much less. Therefore, Germany has faced a surplus, while the US has a trade deficit. It has been suggested that Germany should decrease their surplus, not through decrease of the exports, but through increase in imports. Increase in exports from other countries would lead to improvement of the economies of other countries like Spain, France, etc.

This article represents the perfect example of how the balance accounts aren't equaling out! The article states that the the US debt has increased due to a decrease in exports. What this tells us is that the current account has decreased and therefore has further de-equalized the situation. Therefore as the article states the debt has grown by 0.4% to $38.8 billions dollars. Telling is us that the capital and current accounts arent balancing eachother

Last month, governor Joko Widodo has taken over the top job in Jakarta, as he has agreed to raise minimum wage. From the previous amount of 1.53 million rupiah, the new governor has agreed to increase the wage to 2.2 million rupiah. Suppliers are grumbling as one shoe owners states that "that large an increase is irrational" and is not sure if "buyers will be willing to pay more." In addition, high wages may prompt inflation, and discourage investment as suppliers are detrimentally affected. There is a critical balance that must be struck between the impacts of the people and the cost of the suppliers.

Slovakia will miss their budget target this year as the GDP Growth has slowed down. They have been hurt from slowing demand from their western peers because slovakia is a high exporting country. The expected growth has dropped to 0.9 from 1.4. This article shows us how important it is to have a balance import and export trade system with other nations. Due to the lack of demand in exports from the western part of the world, slovakia is struggling with economic growth.

Japan's trade deficit increases in October as increase in imports exceed increase in exports to the US and China. Over the past years, weakening yen has helped promote exports, but also increases the cost for imports. The increase in cost for imports, such as crude oil, helped widen trade deficit. This shows the relationship between the current account and the exchange rate. Japan is currently going through a balance trade of goods and services deficit. This results in downward pressure on the exchange rate of the currency as there is an increase in the supply of yen due to increase in imports.

This article focuses on the trade deficit of Japan. Japan's trade deficit nearly doubled in October, as growth in imports outpaced robust increases in exports to the U.S. and China, the Finance Ministry reported Wednesday. There are several factors that led to trade deficit. Firstly, the weakening of the yen over the past year had its significant impact on imports and exports. After meltdown of the nuclear power plant in 2011, Japan has faced loss of the generation capacity, therefore forcing Japan to import natural gas and oil. Overall, weakening in the Japanese yen over the past year has helped exports, but it has also increased the cost of imports.However, the exports are not as stable as they could be. Slowdown in economic growth of China has led to decrease in demand for Japanese exports.Overall the article talks about the details of the trade deficit of Japan.

Almost entirely on the back of stronger exports, last week the U.S. Commerce Department revised upward its economic growth estimate for the second quarter, from 1.7 to 2.5 percent. Exports from April to June grew at their fastest pace in two years, pushing down the U.S. trade deficit to 2.7 percent of gross domestic product. That's less than half what it was at its peak of around 6 percent of GDP in late 2005.

The U.S. trade deficit widened slightly in August as exports slipped, suggesting trade will probably not be much of a boost to growth in the third quarter.

Canada's trade deficit decreased for the past several months thanks to an increase in exports of energy products such as natural gas and bitumen. Furthermore, there have been increases in transportation equipment, mostly for aircraft exports. These increases in exports were met with decreases in imports as plastic/rubber products, chemical and aircrafts were lower. These factors allowed the Canadian trade deficit to decrease over these past few months.

This article tells us that the trade deficit (the level of imports exceeds the ones of exports) in the U.S has been a constant issue, however as we can read, the article states that the trade deficit has narrowed more than expected to 43.2 billion instead of 43.5 billion, this is the smallest deficit ever since January 2010, when the deficit was 51.9 billion. One of the factors that have contributed to this change is the great and significant drop in oil imports.

This article tells us how the trade deficit increased it's gap due to more goods and services being imported than exported.

This is an article of interest because it hits on a variety of things that we have and are continuing to study: import tariffs, the WTO, global trading in general, and the effects that each nation's actions have on one another.

This article raises awerness of the potencial risks that protectionism polices, import tariffs in this case, might have on the economy. If the WTO talks fail and Ukraine increases import tariffs it could have huge consequences with its trading partners as the local firms of the trading partners will suffer heavy losses, potencially leading to that specific export sector closing, which in time would effect the economic growth of the exporting country/countries. That is why there always has to be a balance with protectionism policies, iit must both benefit the importer and exporter

It is an article about the trade deficit in U.S. The U.S. trade deficit with China rose slightly in September to the record monthly level of $30.5 billion. The U.S is a country that normally imports more than they export. One of the factors that contribute to this situation is the fact than many countries in Asia, especially China, are undervaluing their currency what cause an increase in the imports of Asian products in the U.S. Trade deficit is not a new problem, the U.S has been running a trade deficit for more than 20 years. There is a big concern among policymakers about this situation, many of them argue that in some moment foreign countries will stop lending money to the U.S, and the U.S will have to start to repay its debts. This could drive the value of the dollar down, force U.S. interest rates higher, and consequently stifle economic activity. On the other hand there are economists that argue that the trade balance is not a good indicator of economic. They consider that we should look at national savings rate.

This article talks about how the trade deficit in Lebanon has fallen $2.8 Billion because of a drop in imports. This is a perfect example of how current account plays an important role in Internal Economics. Lebanon has previously had a reputation for importing many goods and this has caused them to have a very big Trade Deficit. However, recently reports have shown that they have drastically reduced their imports. This has resulted in them lowering their Trade Deficit, although they still remain some $14 million dollars below a balanced Trade.

Andres Dombret has defended Germany's trade surplus. In recent weeks Germany has been criticized for their extremely high trade surplus due to the mass amounts of exports they ship out. Their Current accounts surplus ended up being at 19.7 billion, the highest in the world. Officials are saying they are hurting the Global Economy with this and that they need to boost their domestic demand. What do you think?

Here we have an article about the current value of the Euro. It is a perfect example of a situation when a country (in this case a group of countries) would like to have a weaker currency. Why the euro zone wants a weak currency? Because the country within UE are trying to increase employment and a low exchange rate means more exports and more domestically produced goods. The bad side of the weak currency is an increase in inflation however the rate of inflation in Europe is very low and unemployment is very high, so the European central bank will try to balance both values.