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Feature Article - Gross External Debt



AUSTRALIA'S EXTERNAL DEBT

Quarterly statistics on Australia's foreign debt have been published as a component of the international investment position (IIP) for many years. International investment statistics are compiled in accordance with the standards set out in the Fifth Edition of the International Monetary Fund's Balance of Payments Manual (BPM5, 1993).

The level of Australia's foreign debt is presented in detail in Table 35 of this publication, with data on debt transactions presented in Table 34. Both tables show debt assets (where Australian residents have a non-equity claim on non-residents), debt liabilities (where non-residents have a non-equity claim on Australian residents) and the net debt position. A summary of the net foreign debt position, in reconciliation format, is presented in Table 2.

More recently, the External Debt Statistics: Guide for Compilers and Users (available on the IMF website http://www.imf.org/external/np/sta/ed/guide.htm) has introduced the concept of "external debt", which differs from the definition of foreign debt that the ABS uses in the IIP. The difference is that external debt excludes financial derivatives. The Guide's external debt presentation also includes only debt liabilities, with no provision for the presentation or netting off of debt assets.

In keeping with Australia's reporting obligations under the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard, to which Australia and 52 other countries have subscribed, the ABS will publish each quarter in this publication external debt statistics in addition to the existing foreign debt statistics. This will enable analysts to have external debt data available on a basis comparable with the statistics produced by other countries.

The table below presents Australia's external debt according to the Guide's formulation. Financial derivative liabilities are shown as a memorandum item to reconcile external debt with foreign debt liabilities presented in Table 35.

This information is provided in a table in the 'Analysis' section of the publication. The table will be incorporated into the main body of the tables from next quarter.

GROSS EXTERNAL DEBT

Gross External Debt Liabilities (a) (b) (c) - Levels - $million

	Sep Qtr	Dec Qtr	Mar Qtr	Jun Qtr	Sep Qtr
	2002	2002	2002	2003	2003 p
Direct investment liabilities	61,984	68,175	65,813	63,058	63,770
External debt liabilities to affiliated enterprises	12,133	12,553	12,503	12,639	13,236
External debt liabilities to direct investors	49,851	55,622	53,310	50,419	50,534
Other liabilities	455,218	461,479	456,098	460,719	468,969
General government	25,302	23,858	22,246	24,049	24,161
Short term	557	975	296	0	0
Money market instruments	557	975	296	0	0
Long term	24,745	22,883	21,950	24,050	24,161
Bonds and notes	24,620	22,758	21,829	23,932	24,041
Loans and other liabilities	125	125	121	118	120
Financial corporations	366,615	373,170	370,860	372,836	380,625
Monetary authorities	35	50	37	150	108
Short term	35	50	37	150	108
Currency and deposits	35	50	37	150	108
Depository corporations	277,333	281,761	279,452	281,648	281,852
Short term	160,377	162,845	162,727	158,142	148,954
Money Market instruments	64,824	62,015	60,928	55,583	55,088
Trade credits	18	37	83	179	203
Loans and other liabilities	35,937	41,647	41,858	39,783	29,088
Currency and deposits	59,598	59,146	59,858	62,597	64,575
Long term	116,957	118,918	116,725	123,507	132,900
Bonds and notes	110,369	112,389	110,071	116,578	123,563
Loans and other liabilities	6,588	6,529	6,654	6,929	9,337
Other financial corporations	89,247	91,359	91,371	91,038	98,665
Short term	19,571	19,052	14,090	12,995	13,260
Money market instruments	6,331	6,797	5,157	3,068	4,347
Trade credits	919	580	450	564	530
Loans and other liabilities	12,321	11,675	8,483	9,363	8,383
Long term	69,675	72,306	77,283	78,042	85,406
Bonds and notes	68,541	71,187	75,712	76,613	83,986
Trade credits	23	24	24	26	26
Loans and other liabilities	1,111	1,095	1,547	1,403	1,394
Other sectors	63,301	64,451	62,992	63,834	64,183
Short term	8,663	9,559	8,450	8,912	9,185
Money market instruments	5,100	5,789	4,988	4,835	5,454
Trade credits	2,772	2,966	2,670	2,929	2,603
Loans and other liabilities	791	804	792	1,148	1,128
Long term	54,638	54,893	54,542	54,923	55,000
Bonds and notes	45,173	45,785	45,349	45,164	44,515
Trade credits	149	243	214	333	340
Loans and other liabilities	9,316	8,865	8,979	9,426	10,145
GROSS EXTERNAL DEBT (d)	517,202	529,653	521,911	523,779	532,740
Financial derivative liabilities	30,851	36,181	39,093	44,522	41,858
FOREIGN DEBT LIABILITIES (e)	548,053	565,834	561,004	568,301	574,598