THE EXTERNAL DEBT OF DEVELOPING AND TRANSITION COUNTRIES

1
THE EXTERNAL DEBT OF DEVELOPING AND TRANSITION
COUNTRIES
OECD STATISTICS
2
History of the external debt unit

• 1967 Establishment of OECDs 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.

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The external debt unit activity

• Definition of concepts.

• 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).

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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
current
current
residents
Nominal
Immediate risk
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DEBT OUTSTANDING AT END-DECEMBER 2001
( millions)
Ecuador
Thailand

• Official

• Multilateral

3 713 627
7 550 137
Total Of Which concessional

• Bilateral Loans

1 043 878
11 774 7 465
Total Of Which ODA/OA

• Export credits

672 239
3 282 2 556
Non-bank Bank

• Private

1 242
16 925

• Bank loans and deposits

4 046
10 013

• Debt securities

• Other

178
8 920
Total
11 133
61 021
Of which Due within one year
13 942
1 688
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Why external debt statistics?

• To provide financial stability indicators

• To monitor debt finance for development.

• To assess countries debt sustainability.

• To provide indicators of vulnerability to
  crisis.

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Who are the users?
Debt management offices
Financial analysts
Debtor policy markers
Private lenders
Debtor statistical offices
Official lenders
Supervisory authorities
Aid providers
Rating agencies
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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 a perspective not obtainable from
  debtor data.

• Provides useful reference for debtor
  compilers.

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DEBT OUTSTANDING AT END-DECEMBER 2001
( millions)
Ecuador
Thailand

• Official

• Multilateral

3 713 627
7 550 137
Total Of Which concessional

• Bilateral Loans

1 043 878
11 774 7 465
Total Of Which ODA/OA

• Export credits

672 239
3 282 2 556
Non-bank Bank

• Private

1 242
16 925

• Bank loans and deposits

4 046
10 013

• Debt securities

• Other

178
8 920
Of which Due within one year
13 942
1 688
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Main problems and research issues

• Black holes

• Residual unidentified overlaps between data series

• Nominal

/ market valuation

• Treatment of financial centres

• Measurement of flow data

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Value added of work

• Builds on, often confidential,
• data from multiple national and international
  sources.

• Contributes to international financial
  transparency.

• Responds to public demand.

• Deals with methodological and conceptual issues
• relevant to other financial statistics.