LIMA, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Peru had a current account deficit of 1.3 percent of the gross domestic product in 2017, its smallest in the last eight years, thanks to higher revenues from its mining exports, the central bank said on Friday.
The current account is the broadest measure of a country's foreign transactions encompassing trade, services, and financial flows including interest payments. The deficit in 2016 was 2.7 percent of GDP.
"Our external accounts were favored mainly by an increase in the trade surplus of 1.9 percent thanks to better prices that contributed to higher mining product exports," the bank said in a statement.
An increase in fish export revenue contributed to the shrinkage of the current account deficit as well, the bank said.
In the fourth quarter of last year, the current account registered a deficit of 1.6 percent of GDP versus a surplus of 0.5 percent in the same 2016 period.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino, writing by Hugh Bronstein; editing by Diane Craft)
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