In 2008, the current account deficit to GDP ratio reached the height of 21.6%, indicating large and unsustainable external imbalance. Since then, it corrected sharply to 7.2% in 2009 and 2010, and is estimated to be around 7.5% in 2011.
For the current account deficit to improve to such an extent, it was necessary to increase net exports and investments and to cut real consumption. Indeed, in 2009 and 2010 net exports contributed to growth by 9.3 percentage points and 3.7 percentage points, respectively. In the first half of 2011, fixed investments led GDP growth, contributing with 1.2 percentage points.