BRUSSELS, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- The European Union's (EU) current account deficit grew to 16.3 billion euros (23.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the third quarter of 2007, the EU's statistics bureau Eurostat estimated on Tuesday.

    The deficit was up from 14.6 billion euros (21.4 billion dollars) in the second quarter of this year, but dropped significantly from the same period of last year, when the bloc registered an external current account deficit of 24.6 billion euros (36.1 billion dollars).

    Though the current account deficit expanded, the EU recorded a larger surplus in trade in services in the third quarter, which was 24.2 billion euros (35.5 billion dollars), up from 23.6 billion euros (34.6 billion dollars) in the second quarter and from 16.7 billion euros (24.5 billion dollars) in the third quarter of 2006, according to a first estimate of Eurostat.