Economy · Current account balance · Mali
Mali’s current account balance rose to −4.3% of GDP in 2024.
−4.3% of GDP
2024
Up 2.2 pp from 2023.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
−4.3% of GDP
What it is. The current account balance adds up what Mali earns from abroad and what it pays out, covering trade in goods and services, income from work and investment, and transfers such as remittances and grants. The total is divided by GDP so that years of different economic size can be compared. A negative figure means the country spent more abroad than it received. Investment and loan flows, which finance any gap, sit in a separate account.
Higher is better. A higher balance means Mali covers more of its foreign spending from its own earnings and has less to finance with borrowing, aid or reserves. The latest figure, for 2024, is −4.3% of GDP, an improvement of 2.2 percentage points on −6.5% of GDP in 2023. Since 2015 the weakest year was 2017 at −6.6% of GDP and the strongest was 2020 at −1.8% of GDP. The 2024 reading sits close to the middle of that range.
Why it matters. A deficit of −4.3% of GDP means Mali relies on money from outside to pay for part of what it imports. That money comes as foreign finance such as loans and grants, or from a run-down of foreign exchange reserves. The narrower gap in 2024 eases some of that pressure on the state and on firms that buy goods abroad. In 2020 the gap was only −1.8% of GDP, so the current level still leaves more than twice that reliance on outside funding.
| Period | Current account balance · Mali |
|---|---|
| 2015 | −4.5% of GDP |
| 2016 | −6.1% of GDP |
| 2017 | −6.6% of GDP |
| 2018 | −4.1% of GDP |
| 2019 | −6.3% of GDP |
| 2020 | −1.8% of GDP |
| 2021 | −6.4% of GDP |
| 2022 | −6.5% of GDP |
| 2023 | −6.5% of GDP |
| 2024 | −4.3% of GDP |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, Current account balance, Mali, 2024; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/economy/current-account-balance/mali
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Methodology
Current account balance as a share of GDP. Unit: % of GDP. A negative value is a deficit.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series BN.CAB.XOKA.GD.ZS), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.