National Statistics Online - Articles - Geographical breakdown of income in the balance of payments: further improvements to the methodology for portfolio investment income
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Geographical breakdown of income in the balance of payments: further improvements to the methodology for portfolio investment income
Further progress on this work and updated estimates of the breakdown of the income flows.
A geographical breakdown of the United Kingdom balance of payments current account has been published since 1997 - the most recent being in the 2000 edition of the Pink Book. Many balance of payments data sources are now able to distinguish transactions with individual countries, but where country data are not reported, estimates are made by using related information. One area where relatively little hard geographical data has historically been available is portfolio investment income credits and debits.
The commentary in this year's Pink Book explained that the ONS was continuing to review the methodology used to estimate the geographical breakdown of portfolio investment income flows. This review concentrated on reviewing the new and emerging data sources for portfolio investment, so that best use was made of all available data. This article reports on further progress on this work, and includes updated estimates of the breakdown of the income flows.
Although the new methodology will be carried forward to 1999, 1998 has been chosen to illustrate the impact of the changes. Annual inquiry results for 1999 will impact on the geographical breakdown, and will be included in the broad quarterly disaggregates published in the quarterly Balance of Payments First Release on 21 December. The next full 42-country breakdown of investment income and balance of payments current account will be published in the 2001 edition of the Pink Book.
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