Canada Current Account Deficit Widens in 3Q

Canada's current-account deficit widened in the third quarter as the shortfall in merchandise trade reached the second highest on record.

The country's current-account deficit expanded in the July-to-September period to a seasonally adjusted 19.35 billion Canadian dollars ($15.05 billion), Statistics Canada said Thursday. Market expectations were for a C$20 billion deficit, according to economists at Royal Bank of Canada.

The previous quarter's deficit was revised to C$15.59 billion from C$16.32 billion.

The current account is the broadest indicator of trade in goods and services, and covers items such as employee wages and investment income. A deficit suggests an economy is importing more capital and goods and services than it exports. This tends to put downward pressure on a country's currency.

Among the Group of Seven countries, only the U.K. has a bigger current-account deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product. Canada's GDP data for the third quarter comes out Friday.

In the third quarter, Canada posted a C$8.93 billion deficit in the trade in goods, versus a C$5.29 deficit in the previous quarter. Canada's deficit in the international trade of services remained largely unchanged at C$6.13 billion.

In the financial account, foreigners boosted their holdings of Canadian securities to C$51.59 billion in the third quarter, led by purchases of bonds.

Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 30, 2017 09:20 ET (14:20 GMT)