REVISED FIGURES released yesterday show that Ireland last year recorded its first balance of payments surplus since 1999.

According to the Central Statistics Office, the surplus stood at €761 million, revised from a deficit of €1.113 billion when the first estimate was published in March.

In the first quarter of 2011, a deficit of just over €1 billion was recorded. This, however, does not suggest that the trend towards surplus, in evidence for two years, is being reversed.

In each of the past five years the first quarter of the year was the period in which the largest deficit was registered (the figures are not seasonally adjusted).

The balance of payments nets export earnings against spending on imports; incomes on foreign investments of Irish residents against incomes of foreign residents’ Irish investments; and cash transfers to Ireland (mostly from the EU) against Irish cash transfers to the rest of the world.

The balance of payments figures also provide the most detailed information available on Irish services exports – by a distance the most dynamic sector of the economy over the past decade.

As is usually the case, services exports declined in the first quarter of the year compared to the previous quarter. However, as the figures are not adjusted for seasonal factors, comparison with the year earlier period usually provides the best indicator of trends.

Computer services are the largest source of services export earnings (see chart) and have driven the overall increase since statistics were first compiled in the late 1990s.

The value of computer services exports increased by 14 per cent on the year-ago period to stand at €7.2 billion in the first three months of the year.

The second largest source of services exports are business services, most of which are provided by foreign multinationals to sister companies in other jurisdictions. At €5.4 billion in the first quarter, they were up 8 per cent year on year.

Financial services and insurance are the third and fourth largest services exports.

Both increased modestly in the first three months of the year compared to the year earlier period.

The travails of the tourism sector are to be seen in the chart. Revenue from foreign visitors, which is classified as a services export, remained just short of €500 million in the first quarter, barely changed on the same period in 2010.