Terms and definitions
Quarterly release. About 70 days time lag. Revised annual data about 11 months and final annual data about 23 months after the accounting year. Quarterly data are subsequently reconciled with the final annual data.
Balance of Payments statistics are held at national level.
930 - Division for National Accounts
Not relevant.
EU-regulations incorporated in the EEA-agreement ruling the scope of the statistics, defining the variables and prescribing the format of the transmissions of data to the EU statistical office, Eurostat.
Not relevant.
The purpose of the Balance of Payments statistics is to supply reliable information on residents' of Norway economic transactions with non-residents. The statistics are an integrated part of the National Accounts using the same principles and definitions.
Balance of Payments statistics has been published by Statistics Norway ever since the first post-war years.
Used in the National Accounts. Balance of Payments statistics give an exact mirror image of the sector Rest of The World in the national Accounts.
Balance of Payments are used by market operators within finance and the business sector in general, and by governmental agencies for economic policy purposes.
Like National Accounts, Balance of Payments accounts are constructed around three basic concepts: statistical units, economic values and transactions. Briefly, the accounting systems describe transactions between statistical units in which economic values are provided or received in exchange for other economic values. The Balance of Payments includes in principle all transactions and economic positions between units resident of the Norwegian economic territory and non-resident units.
The Norwegian economic territory includes mainland Norway together with the Norwegian part of the Continental Shelf, Svalbard and Jan Mayen with Bjørnøya.
Like National Accounts, Balance of Payments accounts are constructed around three basic concepts: statistical units, economic values and transactions. Briefly, the accounting systems describe transactions between statistical units in which economic values are provided or received in exchange for other economic values. The Balance of Payments includes in principle all transactions and economic positions between units resident of the Norwegian economic territory and non-resident units.
The Norwegian economic territory includes mainland Norway together with the Norwegian part of the Continental Shelf, Svalbard and Jan Mayen with Bjørnøya.
Several data sources are sample surveys. See each survey for more information on sampling.
A new sample survey on non-financial enterprises has been established to serve mainly BoP purposes. Also a new survey on cross-border tourism has been introduced recently. Otherwise no specialized data collection for BoP, but extensively use of all available information in other surveys and administrative data systems.
The BoP data are subject to control and evaluation for each publication. Of vital importance is the integration with National Accounts allowing for consistency checks against total flows and positions for the various items. Also the breakdown of flows into price and volume components accommodates for evaluation of results against volume or price indicators.
For some of the BoP items the figures used are as shown in the primary sources. Others are derived through estimations of which the most important are:
The confidentiality rules of Statistics Norway are paid attention to.
The Norwegian Balance of Payments is presented in accordance with the latest internationally approved guidelines. These are specified in "The Balance of Payments Manual, 5th edition" (BPM5), published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The underlying principles and definitions presented there are in full accordance with corresponding international rules for the National Accounts, as laid down in the manual "System of National Accounts 1993" (SNA 1993), which is published by a number of international organisations jointly, including the United Nations and also the IMF.
EU has prepared its own edition of the National Accounts manual, "European System of Accounts 1995" (ESA 1995), which accommodates special conditions in member countries. Pursuant to the European Economic Area Agreement, Norway is obligated to adhere to this system. The reporting of National Accounts data in accordance with ESA definitions to EUROSTAT, EU's statistical office, has a legal basis, and so is also the case for reporting of the Balance of Payments data. The aim of these agreements is to enhance the overall presentation of Balance of Payments figures for countries in the EEA and to improve the quality of the data by harmonising the methods of compilation and calculation.
Like National Accounts, Balance of Payments accounts are constructed around three basic concepts: statistical units, economic values and transactions. Briefly, the accounting systems describe transactions between statistical units in which economic values are provided or received in exchange for other economic values. Statistical units are institutional units which make economic decisions on an independent basis and can present complete accounts for their activities. The institutional unit normally coincides with a body corporate, e.g. a limited liability company or legal person. Economic items can either be real resources, i.e. goods and services, or financial items representing various claims and liabilities.
The basic criterion for entering a transaction in the Balance of Payments is that it involves an exchange between a domestic entity (resident) and a foreign entity (non-resident). Residents are institutional units that engage and intend to continue to engage in economic activities and transactions within a country's territory, with one year or more serving as the conventional guideline.
The Norwegian territory includes mainland Norway together with the Norwegian part of the Continental Shelf, Svalbard and Jan Mayen with Bjørnøya.
In the Balance of Payments, a transaction should in principle be allocated to the period in which there is a change of ownership of the economic value. Conventionally, it is often said that a change of ownership has taken place when the parties of the transaction register it in their books or accounts. In the case of exports and imports of goods, it is in practice when the goods cross the border, as registered through customs declarations that determines the time of recording the transaction.
All transactions shall be valued at market prices. Market prices are defined as amounts of money that willing buyers pay to acquire something from willing sellers; the exchanges are made between independent parties and on the basis of commercial considerations only. Total exports and total imports shall be recorded at f.o.b. prices1. On a detailed commodity level, c.i.f. prices (cost-insurance-freight) are used for imports, i.e. including transport and insurance costs up to the border of the importing country. The exchange rate on the transaction date or the average rate for the shortest period applicable shall be used for converting transactions in foreign currencies into the national currency. Stocks of assets and liabilities are to be valued at prices or rates in effect at the time to which the balance sheet relates.
Income and expenditure are defined in the National Accounts and Balance of Payments excluding gains and losses, irrespective of whether they are realised or unrealised. Such items, however, help to explain total balance sheet changes that take place in the course of a period and are registered on the account for revaluation.
Balance of Payments accounts are based on the rules for double entry bookkeeping. All transactions are represented by two entries, a credit and debit entry. Most transactions are those in which economic items are provided or received in exchange for other economic items, entailing that offsetting credit and debit entries will normally be registered. For example, exports of a good will be registered in External Trade Statistics and recorded as a credit entry in the Balance of Payments accounts, whereas the accompanying increase in foreign assets, e.g. in the form of higher foreign exchange reserves, is registered in sources covering the financial account items and recorded as a transaction on the debit side of the Balance of Payments accounts. In other cases when items are given away rather than exchanged, or a recording is one-sided for other reasons, there is only one recording in the data sources. In these cases a counter entry is constructed, in this example in the form of a transfer so that the double entry requirement is satisfied.
The Balance of Payments is an integrated part of the National Accounts and is constructed as a mirror image of the institutional sector "Rest of the World" in the National Accounts. In the Balance of Payments, transactions are seen from Norway's point of view, while in the institutional sector accounts they will be seen from the perspective of the rest of the world. A surplus on Norway's current account will in the National Accounts appear as a deficit for the sector "Rest of the World".
The Balance of Payments consists of three main parts: a current account, which shows current transactions with the rest of the world, a capital showing capital transactions, and a financial account, which records investment transactions in the form of purchases and sales of financial instruments.
The current account comprises, first, exports and imports of goods and services, with the balance of goods and services as a balancing item. In addition, data are provided for compensation of employees, investment income and expenditure as well as current transfers to and from the rest of the world. The balance for this component is net income and current transfers. The total balance of the current account is the sum of the balances of these two components.
The capital and financial account shows how transactions recorded in the current account result in changes in foreign assets and liabilities, and in addition to purchases and sales of financial instruments includes capital transfers. This entails that the balance on the current account must be adjusted for net capital transfers in order to arrive at net lending.
The definitional relationship between the current account and the financial account is that a current account surplus, adjusted for net capital transfers and net acquisitions of patents and copyrights etc, increases net foreign assets (or reduces net liabilities), while a deficit on the current account will reduce net assets (or increase net liabilities).
The financial account also includes transactions that do not have a counter entry in the current account. One example would be a resident who uses funds in a foreign bank account to repay a loan raised abroad.
Total asset transactions less total liability transactions result in net lending. By adjusting net lending for valuation changes and other balance sheet changes not caused by transactions2, we arrive at changes in Norway's net foreign assets/liabilities.
Se allso Concepts and definitions in national accounts
1 F.o.b. = free on board, i.e. the value when passing the border of the country of exports.
2 Certain types of debt forgiveness and a change in a statistical unit's sectoral classification are examples of balance sheet changes that are not based on transactions.
In addition to the classifications and categories described in the international BoP and National Accounts manuals, it may be mentioned that both the Norwegian BoP and National Accounts make use of the product classification CPA (Classification of Products by Activity) of the EU and the industry classification NACE.
The Norwegian BoP makes use of information from a great variety of statistical sources and will reflect uncertainty and errors in all of these sources. However the fact that BoP is a logical system within the even larger logical system of the National Accounts, it is possible to carry out a range of consistency checks and evaluations to counterbalance the initial collection and processing errors of the primary sources.
Not relevant.
Not relevant.
Not relevant.
As a consequence of having adapted to the international recommendations for compilation the Norwegian BoP is fully comparable with other countries' BoP statistics.
Annual and quarterly current account data are available on a consistent form back to 1970. Correspondingly for the financial account back to 1981. For the period 1994 - 2004 monthly data for both current and financial account are available.
Full integration with the National Accounts makes the Norwegian BoP data fully consistent with both the exports and the imports figures and all other figures for the Rest of the World Account of the National Accounts.
The BoP has a somewhat broader scope compared to the External Trade in Goods statistics. The main deviations are that BoP includes as exports goods delivered to non-resident carriers in Norwegian ports, goods other than oil and gas exported directly from the Norwegian continental shelf, imports of fuel to Norwegian carriers in foreign ports, and direct imports of goods to the Norwegian continental shelf. In addition the BoP converts exports and imports of certain types of goods as registered in the external trade statistics into exports and imports of services.
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/09/03/
Nørgaard, Elisabeth (1998): The Norwegian Balance of Payments. Sources and methods, Rapport 98/23, Statistisk sentralbyrå , Oslo-Kongsvinger
International Monetary Fund (1993): Balance of Payments Manual, fifth edition (BPM5), Washington D.C.
FN/OECD/IMF/Verdensbanken/EU-kommisjonen (1993): System of National Accounts (SNA1993), New York, Paris, Washington D.C., Brussels/Luxembourg
EU-kommisjonen (1995): European System of Accounts (ESA1995), Brussels/Luxembourg
Halvorsen, Tore; Olsen, Heidi Sande; Volden, Monica (2005): Kvartalsvis utenriksregnskap, Økonomiske analyser 3/2005, Statistisk sentralbyrå.
Literary language (Bokmål), English
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