Banca Naţională a României

Methodological Notes

1. Starting with 2014, the sixth edition of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6) replaces the BPM5 as the standard framework for statistics on the transactions and positions between an economy and the rest of the world. With the aim of maintaining and improving the consistency of macroeconomic statistics at international level, the BPM6 has been updated in line with the update of the OECD benchmark definition of Foreign Direct Investment (BD4 – 2008) and of the System of National Accounts (SNA 2008). The BPM6 methodology has been transposed into the EU legislation based on Commission Regulation (EU) No 555/2012 on Community statistics concerning balance of payments, international trade in services and foreign direct investment, as regards the update of data requirements and definitions. For details on the main methodological changes and data comparability see: Implementarea noilor standarde metodologice în statisticile elaborate de BNR (Romanian only) or Implementing the new Balance of Payments Manual.
2. In order to analyse current account data, the following aspects should be considered:
   • 2.1. Goods (on a BOP basis): Source: National Institute of Statistics (NIS) - International Trade of Goods. Imports FOB are calculated by the NBR based on the CIF/FOB conversion factor of 1.0430 set by the NIS: INS - Actualizarea coeficientului CIF/FOB (Romanian only). The balance of payments principle consists in entering goods based on the “change in economic ownership” criterion (goods acquired by residents are included, irrespective of whether the goods cross the country border or not), while in international trade statistics goods are recorded based on the “cross-border” criterion (goods are recorded when crossing the border, irrespective of whether they belong to residents or not). In order to ensure compliance with the “change in economic ownership” principle, the NIS data are adjusted by the NBR, so that the values of exports and imports of goods in the BOP statistics are different from those in international trade statistics. The main difference between the two types of statistics comes from the item manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others which, according to BPM6, has been reclassified from Goods to Services and the data source has been changed from International Trade in Goods to the Quarterly Survey on international trade in services conducted by the NBR;
   • 2.2. Services: Source: Quarterly Survey on International Trade in Services;
   • 2.3. Primary income: includes compensation of employees, investment income (direct investment, portfolio investment, other investment) and other primary income;
   • 2.4. Secondary income: includes current private transfers and transfers of the general government.
3. Foreign direct investment: Since the permanent debt between affiliated financial intermediaries is no longer treated as direct investment, the corresponding data are recorded under the item financial account/other investment.
4. The balance of external debt public debt is cash-based (excluding unmatured accrued interest). External direct public debt includes external loans taken directly by the Ministry of Public Finance and local governments in compliance with the legislation on public debt, including the loans taken by the Ministry of Public Finance in accordance with Government Emergency Ordinance No. 99/2009 ratifying the Stand-By Arrangement between Romania and the IMF as well as financial instruments acquired by non-residents – calculated at market value. External publicly guaranteed debt includes external loans guaranteed by the Ministry of Public Finance and local governments in compliance with the legislation on public debt. IMF loans (item I.3.1 in the table) include loans under the Stand-By Arrangement concluded with the IMF, excluding the amounts received by the Ministry of Public Finance from the IMF according to Government Emergency Ordinance No. 99/2009 (item I.1.1.1. in the table). According to BPM6, allocation of SDRs (item I.3.2 in the table) is included in the long-term external debt.
5. External debt service ratio is calculated as a ratio of long-term external debt service to exports of goods and services.
6. Import cover is calculated as a ratio of the international reserves (foreign exchange + gold) at the end of period to average monthly imports of goods and services for the period under review.
7. Balance of payments data are updated on a monthly basis; updates as well as historical monthly and quarterly data back to 2005 converted into the BPM6 format are available in the Interactive database.