Buoyed by rising imports of capital and consumer goods as well as crude oil, the volume of imports rose faster than the volume of exports over this period. Favourable export prices and the fairly strong external terms of trade nevertheless contributed to the containment of the current-account deficit.
Furthermore, there will doubtless be work to enhance or develop relatively efficient settlement links or bridges between the two US settlement engines and various CSDs in Europe, to provide a degree of integration of post trading functionality.