THE EXTERNAL DEBT OF DEVELOPING AND TRANSITION COUNTRIES OECD STATISTICS
History of the external debt unit 1967: Establishment of OECD’s Creditor Reporting System. 1984: BIS-OECD initiative to combine and jointly publish their creditor statistics on countries’ external debt. 1999: Broadening of previous agreement to include IMF and WB data under Joint Publication. 2003: transfer from DCD to STD.
The external debt unit activity Development of methodology. Collection of primary data from bilateral and multilateral creditors. Collection of creditor and debtor data from international compilers. Standardisation and consolidation of data from multiple sources. Interpretation and dissemination of data. Participation in related international fora (TFFS, Paris Club). Definition of concepts.
What is external debt? Gross external debt, at any given time, is the outstanding amount of those actual current, and not contingent, liabilities that require payment(s) of principal and/or interest by the debtor at some point(s) in the futures and that are owed to non- residents by residents of an economy. Gross liabilities residents Nominal Immediate risk current
DEBT OUTSTANDING AT END-DECEMBER Of which Due within one year Other Other Debt securities Bank loans and deposits Non-bank Bank Export credits Total Of Which ODA/OA Bilateral Loans Total Of Which concessional Multilateral Official Official EcuadorThailand Total Private Private ($ millions)
Why external debt statistics? To provide financial stability indicators To provide indicators of vulnerability to crisis. To assess countries debt sustainability. To monitor debt finance for development.
Who are the users? Debt management offices Private lenders Rating agencies Supervisory authorities Official lenders Aid providers Financial analysts Debtor policy markers Debtor statistical offices
Why a creditor based approach to external debt? Produces data which are comprehensive and comparable across countries and over time. Exploits existing sources of multi-purpose collection systems run by international agencies. Provides useful reference for debtor compilers. Provides a perspective not obtainable from debtor data.
DEBT OUTSTANDING AT END-DECEMBER Of which Due within one year Other Debt securities Bank loans and deposits Non-bank Bank Export credits Total Of Which ODA/OA Bilateral Loans Total Of Which concessional Multilateral Official Official EcuadorThailand TotalPrivate ($ millions)
Main problems and research issues Black holes Residual unidentified overlaps between data series Nominal Treatment of financial centres Measurement of flow data / market valuation
Builds on, often confidential, data from multiple national and international sources. Responds to public demand. Contributes to international financial transparency. Deals with methodological and conceptual issues relevant to other financial statistics. Value added of work