ITALY DEFICIT NOT DUE TO LIBERALIZATION-MINISTER Italy's Foreign Trade Minister Mario Sarcinelli, commenting on speculation in the Italian press, said a sharp balance of payments deficit in May could not be attributed to recent moves liberalizing the purchase of foreign securities. Sarcinelli was reacting to suggestions that last month's overall 3,211 billion lire deficit, which compares with April's 2,040 billion surplus, could be linked to a May 13 decree abolishing obligatory non-interest-bearing deposits on foreign securities purchases. "The deficit can be better attributed to premature and delayed foreign trade payments and receipts (leads and lags) rather than capital outflow to portfolio investment," Sarcinelli said in a statement. Earlier today the newspaper La Repubblica cited remarks by the Bank of Italy, which announced the deficit for May and said it had been partly caused by "non-banking capital outflows." "In practice, it seems that there has been a constant flow of capital to foreign securities or investments outside our borders," said the newspaper. But the newspaper added that it was still not possible to say how far the move to abolish foreign securities purchase deposits had affected Italy's balance of payments.