Bank of Italy released the Italian balance of payments data for June:

The trade balance has clearly improved by a large amount, with trade in goods registering a surplus of €2.85bn for the 12-month period ending at June 2012, compared with a deficit of €25.24bn during the corresponding period last year. Services registered a deficit of €5.35bn,almost half than €9.06bn a year ago, while the total current account balance was -€30.06bn compared with -€59.85bn.

What is worrying is the financial account. Portofolio investment made a very largw swing from +€61bn to -€84.4bn, mainly due to outflows of €95.6bn in securities (especially medium/long-term). Other investment is only positive due to a positive balance of €279.08bn from Bank of Italy. There’s actually a very large capital flight out of MFIs which instead of a positive €30.8bn balance now have a deficit of €123.7bn (a change of more than 150bn) with assets and liabilities all playing their part, while ‘other sectors’ had a €8.9bn reduction in foreign assets.

Although the Italian real tradable sector shows very strong signs of improvement, the capital flight out of Italy is very large.