Comunicat de presă


Balance of payments and external debt – October 2016

14.12.2016

In January - October 2016p, the balance-of-payments current account posted a deficit of EUR 2,919 million, compared with EUR 1,055 million in January - October 2015; the goods balance and primary income balance recorded higher deficits, by EUR 1,506 million and EUR 729 million respectively, the surplus on secondary income narrowed by EUR 262 million, while that on services widened by EUR 633 million.

- EUR million -
  January - October 2015p January - October 2016p
CREDIT DEBIT BALANCE CREDIT DEBIT BALANCE
CURRENT ACCOUNT (A+B+C) 61,959 63,014 -1,055 64,786 67,705 -2,919
A. Goods and services 55,008 55,215 -207 57,913 58,993 -1,080
a. Goods 41,351 47,213 -5,862 43,281 50,649 -7,368
b. Services 13,657 8,002 5,655 14,632 8,344 6,288
- manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others 2,120 140 1,980 2,182 159 2,023
- transport 4,314 1,494 2,820 4,548 1,554 2,994
- tourism-travel 1,283 1,550 -267 1,306 1,585 -279
- other 5,940 4,818 1,122 6,596 5,046 1,550
B. Primary income 2,179 5,445 -3,266 2,447 6,442 -3,995
C. Secondary income 4,772 2,354 2,418 4,426 2,270 2,156

p - Provisional data

Non-residents' direct investment in Romaniae totalled EUR 3,736 million, of which equity (including estimated net reinvestment of earnings) amounted to EUR 2,951 million and intercompany lending recorded a net value of EUR 785 million.

Long-term external debt at end-October 2016 stood at EUR 70,385 million (76.3 percent of total external debt), down 0.2 percent from the level reported at end-2015.

Short-term external debt at end-October 2016 amounted to EUR 21,828 million (23.7 percent of total external debt), up 9.8 percent against end-2015.

In the period under review, total external debt increased by EUR 1,779 million, of which the public debt increased by EUR 1,568 million and the non-publicly guaranteed debt by EUR 533 million, while the monetary authority’s debt declined by EUR 322 million.

Romania’s external debt at end-October 2016
and external debt service in January - October 2016
- EUR million -
  External debt External debt service
January - October 2016p
End-2015p End-October 2016p
I. Long-term external debt 70,558 70,385 15,017
I.1. Public debt 31,610 32,834 4,938
1.1.1. Direct public debt
     o/w:
30,941 32,254 4,835
  I.1.1.1. Loans from the IMF 0 0 0
1.1.2. Publicly guaranteed debt 669 580 103
I.2. Non-publicly guaranteed debt
   of which:
37,574 36,315 9,947
1.2.1. Long-term deposits of non-residents 4,880 3,991 1,916
I.3. Debt of the monetary authority
   of which:
1,374 1,236 132
1.3.1. Loans from the IMF 122 0 123
1.3.2. Allocation of SDRs 1,252 1,236 9
II. Short-term external debt 19,876 21,828 27,826e
Total external debt (I+II) 90,434 92,213 42,843

e - Estimates
p - Provisional data

Long-term external debt service ratio ran at 25.9 percent in January-October 2016 against 38.5 percent in 2015. At end-October 2016, goods and services import cover stood at 6.5 months as compared with 6.4 months at end-2015.

At end - October 2016, the ratio of the National Bank of Romania’s foreign exchange reserves to short-term external debt by remaining maturity came in at 93.7 percent, against 97.9 percent at end-2015.



Methodological Notes

  1. The international standard framework for statistics on the transactions and positions between an economy and the rest of the world lays down in the sixth edition of the IMF’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6). 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 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: The permanent debt between affiliated financial intermediaries (banks, NBFIs) is not treated as direct investment, but recorded under 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, the 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 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 euro-area-statistics.org.