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Balance of payments and external debt – February 2017

13.04.2017

In January – February 2017p, the balance-of-payments current account posted a surplus of EUR 204 million, compared with a deficit of EUR 139 million in January – February 2016; the deficit on trade in goods widened by EUR 243 million, the services and secondary income surpluses narrowed by EUR 90 million and EUR 50 million respectively, while the balance on primary income swung into surplus.

- EUR million -
  January - February 2016p January - February 2017p
CREDIT DEBIT BALANCE CREDIT DEBIT BALANCE
CURRENT ACCOUNT (A+B+C) 11,778 11,917 -139 13,237 13,033 204
A. Goods and services 10,691 10,471 220 11,787 11,900 -113
a. Goods 8,031 9,019 -988 8,858 10,089 -1,231
b. Services 2,660 1,452 1,208 2,929 1,811 1,118
- manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others 422 34 388 440 32 408
- transport 814 275 539 912 363 549
- tourism-travel 226 249 -23 264 400 -136
- other 1,198 894 304 1,313 1,016 297
B. Primary income 461 936 -475 1,087 836 251
C. Secondary income 626 510 116 363 297 66

p - provisional data

Non-residents’ direct investment in Romania totalled EUR 655 million, of which equity (including estimated net reinvestment of earnings) amounted to EUR 834 million and intercompany lending recorded a net negative value of EUR 179 million.

Long-term external debt at end-February 2017 stood at EUR 68,495 million (73.9 percent of total external debt), down 0.7 percent from the level reported at end-2016.

Short-term external debt at end-February 2017 amounted to EUR 24,258 million (26.1 percent of total external debt), up 3.7 percent against end-2016.

In the period under review, total external debt increased by EUR 376 million, mainly from the rise in non-publicly guaranteed debt (by EUR 722 million), while the public debt decreased (by EUR 348 million).

Romania’s external debt at end-February 2017
and external debt service in January - February 2017
- EUR million -
  External debt External debt service
January - February 2017p
End-2016p End-February 2017p
I. Long-term external debt 68,979 68,495 2,094
I.1. Public debt 32,239 31,973 773
1.1.1. Direct public debt 31,694 31,438 761
1.1.2. Publicly guaranteed debt 545 535 12
I.2. Non-publicly guaranteed debt,
   of which: 		35,485 35,265 1,316
1.2.1. Long-term deposits of non-residents 3,787 3,333 334
I.3. Debt of the monetary authority,
   of which: 		1,255 1,257 5
1.3.1. Allocation of SDRs 1,255 1,257 5
II. Short-term external debt 23,398 24,258 6,530e
Total external debt (I+II) 92,377 92,753 8,624

e - estimates
p - provisional data

Long-term external debt service ratio ran at 17.8 percent in January – February 2017 against 27.4 percent in 2016. At end-February 2017, goods and services import cover stood at 6.5 months, as compared with 6.3 months at end-2016.

At end-February 2017, the ratio of the National Bank of Romania’s foreign exchange reserves to short-term external debt by remaining maturity came in at 87.7 percent, against 90.1 percent at end-2016.



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 current account data, the following aspects should be considered:
    1. 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. 2.2. Services: Source: Quarterly Survey on International Trade in Services;
    3. 2.3. Primary income: includes compensation of employees, investment income (direct investment, portfolio investment, other investment) and other primary income (taxes, subsidies);
    4. 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 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. According to BPM6, the allocation of SDRs (item I.3.1 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 the end of 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.

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