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/en/utenriksokonomi/statistikker/putgjeld/aar
15889_om
statistikk
2007-01-31T10:00:00.000Z
External economy
en
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The public's external loan debt, 2006

Content

About the statistics

Definitions

Name and topic

Name: The public's external loan debt
Topic: External economy

Responsible division

Division for Financial Markets Statistics

Definitions of the main concepts and variables

The public's external loan debt is the total of all short-term and long-term loan debt towards abroad by the end of the month. Money market instruments, bonds and notes, deposits and other debt distribute the debt. The long-term debt is debt outstanding for more than one year.

The public comprises the institutional sectors Local government, Private Non-Financial Enterprises, Public Non-Financial Enterprises and Households (Quasi-corporated private enterprises etc.)

Oil activities comprise all enterprises in industry 11 Extraction of Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas and Ocean Transport comprises all enterprises classified in 61.101 Ocean Transport according to the Standard Industrial Classification.

Standard classifications

Financial instruments : are grouped into main groups according to the European System of National Accounts (ESA 1995), with the aim of providing uniform groups. The debt items are classified as follows money market instruments, bonds, loans and other liabilities.

Institutional sectors: The units are grouped into the main institutional sectors: local government, non-financial corporations and households, according to the European System of National Accounts (ESA 1995). In the published data table the enterprises are grouped into the following sectors: Public Enterprises, Private Enterprises and Other Sectors in total. Other Sectors in total comprise Local government and Households (Quasi-corporated private enterprises etc.)

Industry: Non-financial enterprises are grouped by industry according to the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC94), which is based on EU's international standard of industrial classification NACE rev. 1 (1993) and UN's standard industrial classification ISIC rev. 3 The standards can be found on http://www.ssb.no/emner/10/01/nace/ .

Administrative information

Regional level

Only at national level.

Frequency and timeliness

Frequency: Monthly.

Timeliness: The statistics is published two months after the reporting period (the period the data refers too).

International reporting

Numbers and figures are reported to Norges Bank (the Norwegian Central Bank).

Microdata

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

Background

Background and purpose

The purpose is to prepare the data foundation for Norges Bank's monthly credit indicator including the public's external loan debt (C3).

Users and applications

The numbers are used by Norges Bank in their monthly credit indicator C3.

Coherence with other statistics

The statistics are based on the guidelines in the System of National Accounts (SNA 1993), European System of Accounts (ESA 1995), Manual on Monetary and Financial Statistics (IMF) and Balance of Payments Manual (IMF 1993).

The figures for the Public's External Loan Debt and The Gross External Debt Position are identical on a quarterly basis (i.e. figures for the various quarters in a year) for the relevant institutional sectors.

Legal authority

Statistics Act Section 2.2 (1).

EEA reference

Not relevant

Production

Population

The survey comprises monthly external debt statistics for the main institutional sectors Local Government, Private Non-Financial Enterprises, Public Non-Financial Enterprises and Households (Quasi-corporated private enterprises etc.) The debt numbers comprise external long-term debt such as bonds and notes, loans from credit institutions, loans from companies within the same group of companies etc., subordinated loan capital and short-term debt such as certificates, overdraft facilities, short-term debt to companies within the same group of companies, owners, employees etc. Shares in Norwegian companies with foreign owners are not included.

Data sources and sampling

For non-financial enterprises and quasi-corporated private 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 data for trade in services, financial incomes and costs, foreign assets and liabilities etc are collected quarterly and annually for use in the Balance of payments survey. The data for the public's external loan debt are collected on a monthly basis. Information about securities from the Norwegian Central Securities Depository is also used and depot information for financial enterprises collected by Norges Bank.

For both non-financial enterprises and quasi-corporated private enterprises a sample is used for monthly, quarterly and annual surveys. The samples cover about 70 per cent of the public's external loan debt on a monthly basis, 80 per cent of total foreign assets and liabilities quarterly, whereas the sample covers 95 per cent in the annual surveys. For the non-financial enterprises and quasi-corporated private companies the samples comprise 75 enterprises in the monthly survey, 500 enterprises on a quarterly basis and 2500 enterprises annually.

Collection of data, editing and estimations

Administrative registers are used for data collection for information about securities from the Norwegian Central Securities Depository and depot information for financial enterprises. For the non-financial companies and quasi-corporated private companies these data are to be submitted either via Altinn (the central government authorities' common internet reporting portal) or by e-mail.

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

The numbers for the non-financial enterprises are scaled up in the monthly, quarterly and annual surveys by the use of statistical methods to represent figures for the total external loan debt.

Confidentiality

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

Comparability over time and space

The revision of international standards and large changes in the accountancy laws may result in a gap in the time series data. The statistics in its present form was collected by Statistics Norway in March 2005 (numbers for the January 2005). Figures for the public's external loan debt are also published by Norges Bank, please see http://www.norges-bank.no/front/statistikk/no/k3/

Accuracy and reliability

Sources of error and uncertainty

For non-financial enterprises the monthly and quarterly survey are based upon a sample of companies. Further, for these companies the survey comprises a part of the companies' balance sheet in the SIF, i.e. the items that give information about the debt towards abroad. The interpretation of what substitutes liabilities between a Norwegian company and a foreign counterpart and how the debt is to be distributed by the various debt items can lead to errors in the statistics.

The response usually amounts to 96-97 per cent for the part of the survey covering the non-financial enterprises. Hence, the non-response figure is relatively low. There are, however, some non-response errors with regards to some of the debt items in the forms. This is corrected through contact with the respondents and estimation of data for some units in the sample in such a manner that the published data probably do not comprise notable errors with regards to the total level of debt or distributed by debt objects.

Sampling error is the uncertainty caused by producing figures by using a selection of entities and not the total population. Hence, the sampling error measured the expected deviation between the result from using the sample and the expected result from running a total census for the entire population of companies with assets and liabilities towards foreign countries.

The sampling methods presuppose that the population itself covers the vast majority of all companies with assets and liabilities towards foreign countries. There is, however, no overview of companies with these balance sheet items, and hence it may be difficult to detect all relevant units that should be included in the quarterly surveys. The collection procedures are, however, modeled in such a way that it is unlikely that important units are not included.

There may be errors or flaws in the reports. The most common errors and flaws are numbers stated in items where they should not be according to the items' definitions and partly also that the distinction between a Norwegian and a foreign unit can be unclear or that the reporters do not state all relevant information in their submitted data.