Monthly Bulletin July 2009 - Banque de France

EURO AREA
STATISTICS
General notes
(ECB/2004/15) 11 and the amending ECB
Guideline of 31 May 2007 (ECB/2007/3) 12 .
Additional references about the methodologies
and sources used in the euro area b.o.p. and i.i.p.
statistics can be found in the ECB publication
entitled “European Union balance of payments/
international investment position statistical
methods” (May 2007), and in the following
Task Force reports: “Portfolio investment
collection systems” (June 2002), “Portfolio
investment income” (August 2003) and “Foreign
direct investment” (March 2004), all of which
can be downloaded from the ECB’s website. In
addition, the report by the ECB/European
Commission (Eurostat) Task Force on Quality
of balance of payments and international
investment position statistics (June 2004) is
available on the website of the Committee on
Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments
Statistics (www.cmfb.org). The annual quality
report on the euro area b.o.p./i.i.p., which is
based on the Task Force’s recommendations, is
available on the ECB’s website.
The tables in Sections 7.1 and 7.4 follow the
sign convention in the IMF Balance of Payments
Manual, i.e. surpluses in the current account and
in the capital account have a plus sign, while
in the financial account a plus sign denotes an
increase in liabilities or a decrease in assets. In
the tables in Section 7.2, both credit and debit
transactions are presented with a plus sign.
Furthermore, starting with the February 2008
issue of the Monthly Bulletin, the tables in
Section 7.3 have been restructured in order
to allow the data on balance of payments, the
international investment position and related
growth rates to be presented together; in the new
tables, transactions in assets and liabilities that
correspond to increases in positions are shown
with a plus sign.
The euro area b.o.p. is compiled by the ECB.
Recent monthly figures should be regarded as
provisional. Data are revised when figures for
the following month and/or the detailed quarterly
b.o.p. are published. Earlier data are revised
periodically, or as a result of methodological
changes in the compilation of the source data.
In Section 7.2, Table 1 also contains seasonally
adjusted data for the current account. Where
appropriate, the adjustment also covers
working-day, leap-year and/or Easter effects.
Table 3 in Section 7.2 and Table 8 in Section 7.3
present a breakdown of the euro area b.o.p. and
i.i.p. vis-à-vis main partner countries individually
or as a group, distinguishing between EU Member
States outside the euro area and countries
or areas outside the European Union. The
breakdown also shows transactions and positions
vis-à-vis EU institutions (which, apart from the
ECB, are treated statistically as outside the euro
area, regardless of their physical location) and,
for some purposes, also offshore centres and
international organisations. The breakdown does
not cover transactions or positions in portfolio
investment liabilities, financial derivatives and
international reserves. In addition, separate data
are not provided for investment income payable
to Brazil, mainland China, India and Russia.
The geographical breakdown is described in the
article entitled “Euro area balance of payments
and international investment position vis-à-vis
main counterparts” in the February 2005 issue of
the Monthly Bulletin.
The data on the euro area b.o.p. financial
account and i.i.p. in Section 7.3 are based on
transactions and positions vis-à-vis non-residents
of the euro area, considering the euro area as a
single economic entity (see also Box 9 in the
December 2002 issue of the Monthly Bulletin,
Box 5 in the January 2007 issue of the Monthly
Bulletin and Box 6 in the January 2008 issue
of the Monthly Bulletin). The i.i.p. is valued
at current market prices, with the exception of
direct investment, where book values are used for
unquoted shares, and other investments (e.g. loans
and deposits). The quarterly i.i.p. is compiled on
the basis of the same methodological framework
as the annual i.i.p. As some data sources are not
available on a quarterly basis (or are available
with a delay), the quarterly i.i.p. is partly
estimated on the basis of financial transactions,
asset prices and foreign exchange developments.
11 OJ L 354, 30.11.2004, p. 34.
12 OJ L 159, 20.6.2007, p. 48.
ECB
Monthly Bulletin
July 2009S 91