1. NBR
  2. Press releases
  3. Balance of payments and external debt - December 2 ...

Comunicat de presă


Balance of payments and external debt - December 2015

12.02.2016
The balance of payments (BOP) and external debt data are compiled and disseminated according to the new methodological standards (see Methodological notes).

In January - December 2015p, the balance-of-payments current account posted a deficit of EUR 1,758 million, as compared with EUR 686 million in 2014, amid the widening of the primary income and goods deficits (by EUR 1,830 million and EUR 1,430 million, respectively), which were partially offset by the increase in secondary income and services surpluses (by EUR 1,187 million and EUR 1,001 million, respectively).

- EUR million -
  January - December 2014p January - December 2015p
CREDIT DEBIT BALANCE CREDIT DEBIT BALANCE
CURRENT ACCOUNT (A+B+C) 68,658 69,344 -686 73,452 75,210 -1,758
A. Goods and services 61,908 62,376 -468 65,397 66,294 -897
a. Goods 46,807 53,142 -6,335 49,103 56,868 -7,765
b. Services 15,101 9,234 5,867 16,294 9,426 6,868
- manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others 2,525 163 2,362 2,513 165 2,348
- transport 4,391 1,577 2,814 5,184 1,753 3,431
- tourism-travel 1,378 1,824 -446 1,535 1,849 -314
- other 6,807 5,670 1,137 7,062 5,659 1,403
B. Primary income 2,197 4,101 -1,904 2,376 6,110 -3,734
C. Secondary income 4,553 2,867 1,686 5,679 2,806 2,873

p - Provisional data

Non-residents' direct investment in Romania (estimates) totalled EUR 3,035 million (as compared with EUR 2,421 million in 2014), of which equity (including estimated net reinvestment of earnings) amounted to EUR 3,340 million (as compared to EUR 2,846 million) and intercompany lending recorded a net negative value of EUR 305 million (as compared to EUR 425 million).

Long-term external debt at end-2015 stood at EUR 71,056 million (78.2 percent of total external debt), down 6.3 percent from end-2014.

Short-term external debt at end-2015 amounted to EUR 19,840 million (21.8 percent of total external debt), up 4.9 percent from end-2014.

In the period under review, total external debt declined by EUR 3,848 million, of which public debt by EUR 1,197 million, the monetary authority’s debt by EUR 1,038 million and non-publicly guaranteed debt by EUR 1,613 million.

Romania’s external debt at end-2015
and external debt service in January - December 2015
- EUR million -
  External debt External debt service
January - December 2015p
End-2014p End-2015p
I. Long-term external debt 75,829 71,056 23,141
I.1. Public debt 32,833 31,586 7,363
I.1.1. Direct public debt, o/w: 31,754 30,929 6,877
I.1.1.1. Loans from the IMF 162 0 170
I.1.2. Publicly guaranteed debt 1,079 657 486
I.2. Non-publicly guaranteed debt, o/w:40,402 38,096 14,393
I.2.1. Long-term deposits of non-residents 6,091 5,197 3,577
I.3. Debt of the monetary authority, o/w: 2,594 1,374 1,385
I.3.1. Loans from the IMF 1,421 122 1,385
I.3.2. Allocation of SDRs 1,173 1,252 0
II. Short-term external debt 18,915 19,840 30,692e
Total external debt (I+II) 94,744 90,896 53,833

e - Estimates
p - Provisional data

Long-term external debt service ratio ran at 35.4 percent in January-December 2015 against 38.5 percent in 2014. At end-2015, goods and services import cover stood at 6.4 months, as compared with 6.8 months at end-2014.

At end-2015, the ratio of the National Bank of Romania’s foreign exchange reserves to short-term external debt by remaining maturity stood at 98 percent, as compared with 88.9 percent at end-2014.



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 (taxes, subsidies);
    • 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 (banks, NBFIs) is no longer treated as direct investment, the corresponding data are recorded under the item financial account/other investment.
  4. The balance of external 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. Loans from the IMF (item I.3.1 in the table) include the amounts drawn 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. Long-term 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. Short-term external debt by remaining maturity refers to the short term external debt outstanding at end-period plus the payments related to long term external debt due in the following 12 months.
  8. 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.

The European Central Bank has recently launched “Our statistics”, a website developed in cooperation with the national central banks of the Eurosystem, to make its statistics more accessible. “Our statistics” can be accessed at https://www.euro-area-statistics.org.

T: +4031 132 2321
E: press@bnro.ro