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Balance of payments and external debt - June 2016

12.08.2016

In January - June 2016p, the balance-of-payments current account posted a deficit of EUR 2,507 million, compared with EUR 374 million in January - June 2015; the goods balance and primary income balance recorded higher deficits, by EUR 1,114 million and EUR 1,067 million, respectively, while the surplus on secondary income stood EUR 71 million lower and that on services balance widened by EUR 119 million.

- EUR million -
  January - June 2015p January - June 2016p
CREDIT DEBIT BALANCE CREDIT DEBIT BALANCE
CURRENT ACCOUNT (A+B+C) 37,053 37,427 -374 36,926 39,433 -2,507
A. Goods and services 32,312 32,014 298 33,292 33,989 -697
a. Goods 24,355 27,273 -2,918 25,480 29,512 -4,032
b. Services 7,957 4,741 3,216 7,812 4,477 3,335
- manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others 1,242 79 1,163 1,186 88 1,098
- transport 2,492 878 1,614 2,380 814 1,566
- tourism-travel 706 856 -150 730 852 -122
- other 3,517 2,928 589 3,516 2,723 793
B. Primary income 1,896 3,808 -1,912 1,124 4,103 -2,979
C. Secondary income 2,845 1,605 1,240 2,510 1,341 1,169

p) provisional data

Non-residents’ direct investment in Romania (estimates) totalled EUR 2,036 million, of which equity (including estimated net reinvestment of earnings) amounted to EUR 1,561 million and intercompany lending recorded a net value of EUR 475 million.

Long-term external debt at end-June 2016 stood at EUR 68,908 million (78.1 percent of total external debt), down 2.5 percent from the level reported at end-2015.

Short-term external debt at end-June 2016 stayed flat against end-2015 at EUR 19,348 million (21.9 percent of total external debt).

In the period under review, total external debt declined by EUR 1,778 million, of which non-publicly guaranteed debt decreased by EUR 1,250 million, the monetary authority’s debt by EUR 320 million, and the public debt by EUR 208 million.

Romania’s external debt at end-June 2016
and external debt service in January - June 2016
- EUR million -
  External debt External debt service
January - June 2016p
End-2015p End-June 2016p
I. Long-term external debt 70,709 68,908 10,159
I.1. Public debt 31,602 31,322 3,625
1.1.1. Direct public debt
     o/w:		 30,944 30,717 3,547
  I.1.1.1. Loans from the IMF 0 0 0
1.1.2. Publicly guaranteed debt 658 605 78
I.2. Non-publicly guaranteed debt
   of which: 		37,733 36,349 6,411
1.2.1. Long-term deposits of non-residents 5,190 4,372 1,525
I.3. Debt of the monetary authority
   of which: 		1,374 1,237 123
1.3.1. Loans from the IMF 122 0 123
1.3.2. Allocation of SDRs 1,252 1,237 0
II. Short-term external debt 19,325 19,348 16,776e
Total external debt (I+II) 90,034 88,256 26,935

e) estimates
p) provisional data

Long-term external debt service ratio ran at 30.5 percent in January-June 2016 against 35 percent in 2015. At end-June 2016, goods and services import cover stood at 6.3 months, compared with 6.4 months at end-2015.

At end-June 2016, the ratio of the National Bank of Romania’s foreign exchange reserves to short-term external debt by remaining maturity came in at 101.3 percent, against 99.5 percent at end-2015.



Methodological Notes

  1. Starting with the year 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 analyze the data, for the current account 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.

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