Composed of international economic transactions data, BOPS delivers critical statistical information that covers: total goods, services, income, and current transfers an economy receives from or provides to the rest of the world; capital transfers and changes in each economy’s external financial claims and liabilities; tables featuring area and world totals of balance of payments; and IIP components and aggregates. The IMF Balance of Payments Statistics contains over 200,000 quarterly and annual time series data. The data include aggregate as well as detailed information in the form of analytical and standard component presentations for countries. Additional documentation is included with descriptions of methodologies, compilation practices, and data sources used by individual member countries in compiling their balance of payments and international investment position statistics.

The Balance of Payments Statistics (BOPS) Yearbook provides tables of data, featuring regional and world totals of balance of payments and IIP components and aggregates as well as detailed information in the form of analytical and standard component presentations for economies. It is compiled in accordance with the IMF’s Balance of Payments Manual (BPM6). The Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook is usually published in December.

Composed of international economic transactions data, BOPS delivers critical statistical information that covers: total goods, services, income, and current transfers an economy receives from or provides to the rest of the world; capital transfers and changes in each economy’s external financial claims and liabilities; tables featuring area and world totals of balance of payments; and IIP components and aggregates. The IMF Balance of Payments Statistics contains over 200,000 quarterly and annual time series data. The data include aggregate as well as detailed information in the form of analytical and standard component presentations for countries. Additional documentation is included with descriptions of methodologies, compilation practices, and data sources used by individual member countries in compiling their balance of payments and international investment position statistics.

This annual issue of Balance-of-Payments Statistics Yearbook (BOPSY) contains two sections: World and Regional Tables, and Country Tables. The first section presents 21 world and regional tables for major components of the balance of payments, net International Investment Position (IIP), and total financial assets and total liabilities for the IIP. The second section provides detailed tables on balance-of-payments statistics for 191 economies and IIP data for 150 economies. Volume 66 of the BOPSY, published by the IMF, contains balance of payments and international investment position (IIP) data in accordance with the sixth edition of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual. Data are presented for 2007 forward. The IMF is grateful for countries’ cooperation in providing comprehensive, timely, and regular data to the IMF for re-dissemination. These data support the IMF’s Statistics Department in its efforts to respond to the analytical and policy needs of the IMF, member countries, and the international community.

Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook 2016

The Annual Report of the IMF

This paper analyzes In the World and Regional Tables, missing data are estimated for countries by IMF staff to the extent possible. The estimation procedure is based largely on the use of the World Economic Outlook (WEO) database in BPM6 format. The BPM6-based WEO provides expanded data coverage for some series and facilitates an improved basis for estimation procedures used in BOPSY. However, data published in BOPSY may differ from balance-of-payments data published in the WEO mainly due to timing and estimation methodology differences. The following outlines the methodology used to gap-fill balance-of-payments data where country data are missing. For goods and services transactions, where data gaps exist in years prior to estimates are made by applying the growth rates derived from the WEO for the missing year(s) to the latest reported annual data (debits and credits). In cases where there are gaps for the entire period, WEO data are inserted directly.

This paper analyses that the IMF has published data on a basis that is consistent across countries and across time periods. Such data consistency is required to perform cross-country data comparisons, track growth rates across time, and produce regional or global data aggregates. The methodologies, compiling practices, and data sources available through data.imf.org and DVD-ROM are based on information provided to the IMF by reporting countries. The descriptions are intended to enhance user understanding of the coverage, as well as the limitations, of individual country data. The estimation procedure is based largely on the use of the WEO database in BPM6 format. For a variety of reasons, however, countries may not correctly record some transactions, or they classify corresponding transactions differently. Under these circumstances, errors and omissions in the national data and asymmetries (discrepancies) in the global statistics arise.

The IMF Government Finance Statistics contains statistical data on government financial operations for 156 countries. Where reported, the database contains time series from 1990 onwards using the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001 (GFSM 2001) framework. The statistics, issued quarterly, are updated as new data are received and time series become available. These time series present combined statistics on revenue, expense, transactions in non-financial assets, and financial assets and liabilities, as well as on stocks of assets and liabilities of general government and its subsectors.