Press Release No. 2238

The Annual Report of the IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics

February 15, 2022

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released the 2021 Annual Report of the IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics (the Committee). The report summarizes the Committee’s work in 2020 and 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic has considerably affected cross-border transactions in 2020. With global economic activity disrupted, worldwide merchandise trade flows fell by about 8 percent, year-on-year. The effect on trade in services was even more pronounced, as exports of services fell by 18 percent, driven mainly by an unprecedented plunge in the tourism sector, where exports of travel services dropped by more than 63 percent.

In contrast to trade, global inflows of personal transfers—mostly remittances—to emerging and developing economies were little changed in 2020.

Cross-border financial assets and liabilities positions, however, rose by almost 12 percent in 2020. Overall, negative net positions reached a historical high of 3.0 percent of global GDP, partly reflecting the impact of the pandemic, which not only adversely impacted global GDP, but also reduced the quality of source data.

• In March 2020, the update of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, sixth edition (BPM6) was launched in coordination with the update of the System of National Accounts 2008 (2008 SNA). The BPM6 update addresses key economic developments, namely globalization (e.g., accounting for global production arrangements and MNEs); digitalization (e.g., digital trade, FinTech, crypto assets); and the increased complexity of financial linkages and interdependencies between economies. It also tackles growing policy statistical priorities, including climate change, inclusion, and sustainability.

The IMF, in collaboration with other IOs, released the Climate Change Indicators Dashboard (CID) . The CID aims to become a comprehensive source for statistical indicators on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions from economic activity, trade in environmental goods, green finance, government policies, and physical and transition risks.

• In October 2020, the IMF disseminated the Special Purpose Entities (SPEs): Guidelines for a Data Template to assist countries in implementing the internationally agreed definition of SPEs while ensuring that data compiled on SPEs are comprehensive and comparable. In May 2021, the IMF launched its new international data initiative to collect and disseminate annual cross-border statistics on SPEs. The first set of selected cross-border flows and positions for resident SPEs for reference year 2020 will be released early 2022.

Amid the challenges posed by the pandemic, remote technical assistance and training in statistics was delivered to members, technical notes on maintaining the continuity of statistical compilation during the pandemic were published, and statistical guidance on the recording of the 2021 Special Drawing Rights allocation was provided to countries.