The European Central Bank has said the euro zone's balance of payments slipped further in May to a deficit of €5.8 billion, as member countries struggled with deficits and debt.
The balance of payments, which includes payments for imports and exports of trade in goods and services, is a closely tracked indicator of a country's or area's ability to pay its way in the world.
In April, the euro zone measure had recorded a deficit of €5.6 billion, revised data from the ECB showed, demonstrating a lack of competitiveness by the zone as a whole.
The overall figure for the euro zone combines surpluses from strong exporting nations such as Germany with the balances of countries which have structural external deficits.
A breakdown of the data showed that seasonally-adjusted exports of goods rose to €131.6 billion in May from €124.4 billion in April, while imports rose to €128.5 billion from €123.8 billion.
On the financial account, the ECB reported net inflows of €47 billion in May. This means more money was invested in euro zone assets than was placed abroad by euro zone companies and institutions, despite concern over the debt crisis.
Separate ECB figures showed that 387,000 counterfeit euro banknotes were withdrawn from circulation in the first half of this year, a drop of 13% from a year earlier. €20 and €50 notes were the most counterfeited.
