External debt position, Q2 2012

National level

Frequency: Quarterly

Timeliness: The statistics is published three months after the reporting period.

Tables and figures are reported to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The original data and the revised micro data are stored in accordance with Statistic Norway's standard for file storage (DataDok).

The purpose is mainly to fulfill Norway's obligations for reporting to the IMF. The reporting is conducted according to IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS).

The figures are mainly used for reporting to the IMF. The figures for external debt are also included in Statistic Norway's publication of Economic Indicators and Prognosis and used in the Balance of Payments.

The statistics is based on the guidelines in the System of National Accounts (SNA 2008), European System of Accounts (ESA 1995), Manual on Monetary and Financial Statistics (IMF) and Balance of Payments Manual (IMF 2006).

Statistics Act Section 2.2 (1)

Council Regulation 2223/96 of 25 June 1996.

The survey comprises quarterly external debt statistics for the main institutional sectors. The main institutional sectors are general government, financial enterprises, non-financial enterprises and households. The external debt figures include long-term debt such as bonds and notes, loans from credit institutions, and short-term debt such as certificates, overdraft facilities and trade credit. Shares, participations and other equity capital in Norwegian companies with foreign owners are not included. Intercompany lending between entities in a direct investment relationship is shown separately.

For the general government the source is balance sheet data from the general government's accounts and other data from general governmental bodies such as the Government Pension Fund - Global, the Government Petroleum Insurance Fund and the National Insurance Scheme Fund. For financial enterprises data from the reporting scheme ORBOF (Public reporting for banks and financing companies) and other reports to Norges Bank, the reporting scheme FORT (The insurance companies accounting and surveillance reporting) to the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway and Statistics Norway and data collected electronically for pension funds, financial holding companies and other financial enterprises. For non-financial enterprises data from the Balance of Payments reporting is used. This survey is linked to the Standard Industrial Form (SIF) from the Directorate of Taxes and hence data for trade in services, financial incomes and costs, foreign assets and liabilities etc are collected in the Balance of Payments survey. Information about securities from the Norwegian Central Securities Depository is also used and depot information for financial enterprises.

For both financial enterprises excluding banks and insurance and non-financial enterprises a sample is used for quarterly and annual surveys. The samples cover about 80 per cent of total foreign assets and liabilities quarterly, whereas the sample covers 95 per cent in the annual surveys. For both samples all companies with assets and liabilities towards abroad of a certain amount are covered.

Administrative registers are used for data collection for the general government, banks etc and insurance, and for information about securities from the Norwegian Central Securities Depository and depot information for financial enterprises. For the remaining sectors data are collected in coordinated surveys comprising questions about trade in services, financial incomes and costs, foreign assets and liabilities etc.

Manual controls are undertaken when data are received and the database comprises control routines for the content and the logical coherence.

A sample is used to collect data for non-financial enterprises. The total external debt figures for the non-financial enterprises is weighted.

For the other institutional sectors figures for the total external debt are taken from the various surveys or registers in use.

Figures are not released if there are less than three units comprising a variable in a table and if it hence is possible to identify the respondent.

The revision of international standards and large changes in accountancy laws may result in gaps in the time series data.

In Q1 2003 - Q4 2004 quarterly external debt were based on a variety of sources and methods by Statistics Norway.

Data collection for statistics published in its present form was initiated by Statistics Norway in June 2005 (first quarter of 2005).

The debt liability of SDR allocations is included in The Central Bank of Norway's other long-term debt liabilites from 1. quarter of 2009.