It would be preferred by users if it was possible to reconcile a country’s external debt statistics with the other financial accounts for the same country. However, even though similarities exists between systems/accounts there are some differences in accounting rules (accrual versus cash recording of transactions, current/market versus face value on stock data), coverage (SNA covers internal/domestic as well as external debt), classification, aggregation and presentation.
National Accounts Statistics
National accounts (SNA) presents a record of a nation's production, generation and use of income, capital and financial formation, as well as capital stocks. Thus, flow and stock data related to external debt should in theory be an integrated part of the national accounts.
SNA follows the rule of accrual accounting, while flow data in debt accounts are recorded on a cash basis – thus differences will occur. E.g., while interest payments/receipts in the national accounts will be recorded on an accrual basis to show how much interest was earned, debt accounts will show how much interest was actually received.
The definition of residency is identical, thus, what is shown as short and long term loans from abroad in the national accounts' balance sheets should be expected to be fairly close to what is found in the debt statistics.
Links between the SNA and the External Debt Accounts
Interest payments on external debt is part of primary income from abroad, net (formerly known as net factor income from abroad), and recorded in the income accounts of the SNA. Interest payments on external debt are one of the components between gross domestic product (GDP) and gross national income (GNI) (formerly known as gross national product – GNP).
Debt forgiveness will in the SNA (and BOP) be treated as a capital transfer recorded in the capital account, and as principal paid recorded in the financial account.
Principals, disbursements and other financial flows paid/received are, in the SNA, recorded in the financial account.
And, SNA’s balance sheet will reflect the countries external debt position, however, at the moment only a few countries compile a full set of national accounts - including capital and financial balance sheets.
Even though the SNA should cover all the flows and stocks related to external debt, reconciliation might be difficult – due to different valuation principles, due to differences in aggregation and presentation, but mainly due to use of additional/other source statistics and/or estimations in the SNA (relates in particular to private non-guaranteed debt).
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