Lesson 4 of 5

The external balance: current account, reserves and external debt

A country's dealings with the rest of the world decide how exposed its currency, rates and borrowers are to money leaving. This lesson explains what the current account measures and how a deficit is financed, when a deficit is a warning and when it is not, how reserves are judged against imports and short-term debt, how external debt is defined and measured, and how East Asia and the Pacific compares with other regions in the World Bank's debt statistics.

Published 2 November 2026