Contents of balance of payments accounting

The object of balance of payments accounting is the transaction between a country's permanent units and non-permanent units. The contents of balance of payments accounting include current income and expenditure, capital current income and expenditure and changes in official reserve items. 1. foreign trade foreign trade includes foreign merchandise trade and service trade

the statistics of foreign merchandise trade include the import and export of goods between China and its trading partners, including land, air, water transportation and some postal goods. Exempted goods, gold and coins are not included. Total merchandise trade up to the flow of all goods between China and its trading partners, including import and export goods and re-export goods. Re-export goods refer to the export of goods that have been imported from abroad, and these goods have not undergone any manufacturing process in China to permanently change their shape, nature, style or use. The value of the goods is calculated on FOB basis.

For the seasonally adjusted commodity trade statistics series, since the seasonal factors have been eliminated by statistical methods, more meaningful short-term comparisons can be made by using foreign trade figures. Comparing the year-on-year changes in the original series of trade statistics with the changes in the last three months of the seasonally adjusted series will help to detect possible changes in its trend. Service trade refers to service export and service input. Service export means selling services to other parts of the world; The import of services is the purchase of services from other parts of the world. The import and export of services are classified according to different service categories, including transportation, tourism, insurance, finance and trade-related services (mainly referring to business services and commodity services) and other services. The coverage of the six main service groups is as follows: transportation includes passenger transportation, cargo transportation, vehicle, boat or plane rental for operators, and related support and auxiliary services. Tourism includes the expenses for tourists to purchase goods and services for private use within the tourist territory, such as hotels, food and drinks, entertainment, transportation expenses within the tourist territory and consumption expenses for purchasing goods. Passengers include business travelers and private tourists (including students).

Insurance services include all kinds of direct insurance and reinsurance services, as well as other services related to insurance transactions, including agency services. Financial services include banking services, financial asset transactions and brokerage services. Trade-related services include business services (offshore trading), commodity services (procurement services) and other trade-related services. Other services include communication, computer and information services, patent and copyright services, personal, cultural and recreational services; Construction services, construction, engineering and other technical services, legal services, accounting, auditing, bookkeeping and tax consulting services, business, management consulting and public relations services, advertising, market research and public opinion survey services, operating leasing services, government services, and other business and personal services.

2. Non-trade transactions Non-trade transactions

refer to revenues and expenditures other than commodity import and export and capital transactions. Including freight and other transportation income and expenditure, tourism income and expenditure, investment income and expenditure and other non-trade income and expenditure. Freight refers to the expenses of transportation, insurance and other promotional services that accompany commodities and other movable goods. Port supply and services refer to all goods and services provided for the operation of means of transport. Tourism revenue and expenditure refers to the revenue and expenditure of tourists who come to China or go abroad to visit, travel, visit relatives, friends, recuperate, treat, inspect, attend meetings or engage in economic, cultural, sports, religious and other activities.

investment income and expenditure includes profit, interest and bank income and expenditure. Profits refer to the profits of Chinese enterprises in foreign countries, China, Hong Kong, China, Macau, China, Taiwan Province and foreign countries, and China, Hong Kong, China, Macau and China, Taiwan Province. Interest refers to the dividends and interest earned by China's investment in foreign countries, China, Hong Kong, China, Macau, China, Taiwan Province and foreign countries, China, Hong Kong, China, Macau and China, Taiwan Province. Bank revenue and expenditure refers to the revenue and expenditure of China Bank on various overseas businesses, such as interest fees. Other non-trade transactions refer to non-trade transactions other than the above, including postal and telecommunications revenues and expenditures, government exchanges revenues and expenditures, labor contract revenues and expenditures, and other revenues and expenditures.

Post and telecommunications revenue and expenditure refers to the foreign exchange revenue and expenditure of China's post and telecommunications departments in handling international post and telecommunications business and business settlement of overseas post and telecommunications departments. Government exchange income refers to the funds remitted by embassies and consulates in China and other institutions and the foreign exchange exchanged, while expenditure refers to the expenditures of Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, experts' funds and overseas students' funds. Labor contract revenue and expenditure refers to China's net income repatriated from foreign labor cooperation and contracted projects and the income remitted from foreign labor cooperation and contracted projects in China.

3. Unilateral transfer Unilateral transfer means that a trader in one country provides a certain economic value to a trader abroad, but does not receive the corresponding and equal economic value, which is also called free transfer.

Unilateral transfer can be divided into two categories: unilateral transfer of real resources and financial projects; When an international immigrant changes from a country's permanent unit to a non-permanent unit, the change in assets or liabilities caused by the change should be recorded in the unilateral transfer according to the custom. Reserve assets refer to foreign exchange assets that can be directly used by the financial authorities of an economic system to pay the external deficit and intervene in the foreign exchange market to defend and support the exchange rate of the domestic currency, thus indirectly regulating the external deficit. Reserve assets include changes in monetary gold reserves, changes in foreign exchange reserves and changes in other creditor's rights and debts.

1. Gold reserve

Gold reserve refers to the gold held by a country's monetary authorities as a financial asset to balance the balance of payments and maintain or influence the exchange rate level. As one of the main forms of international reserves, gold reserves have their own limitations in liquidity. Therefore, the issue of its appropriate scale should be considered. The reference factors for determining the scale of gold reserves include the following contents:

(1) the balance of payments

(2) the level of foreign debt

(3) the level of foreign exchange reserves

2. Foreign exchange reserves

Foreign exchange reserves refer to freely convertible foreign exchange assets owned by China's central bank and national foreign exchange specialized banks and bonds of the World Bank. Foreign exchange is a liability of foreign monetary authorities. The reason why a country can hold foreign exchange is precisely because it lends its actual resources to foreign countries, so it obtains its creditor's rights to foreign governments in the form of holding foreign exchange. In the balance of payments statistics, the increase of foreign exchange reserves and the output of long-term and short-term capital are regarded as liabilities, because its position in the balance of payments is the same as that of capital output. Regardless of the capital inflow under the capital account, from the overall balance of payments, countries with trade and current account surpluses must be capital exporters rather than capital importers.

under normal circumstances, the inflow of foreign capital, especially foreign capital as direct investment, will be accompanied by three situations:

(1) foreign investors have made physical investments (bringing in machinery and equipment, etc.);

(2) Foreign investors inject foreign exchange funds, and then China buys investment products from abroad according to the contract;

(3) Foreign investors only inject foreign exchange funds, and China changes foreign exchange into RMB without using the foreign exchange to import foreign investment products.

in the first case, although there may be no actual remittance of foreign exchange, a positive credit)； should be recorded under the capital account of China's balance of payments; At the same time, because the machinery and equipment have to enter China through the customs, a negative value should be recorded under the trade item. When the two phases are offset, the foreign exchange reserves will not change.

in the second case, Chinese partners who have obtained foreign exchange funds import foreign investment products, other commodities and services. As in the first case, the deficit under the trade account is offset by the surplus under the capital account, and the foreign exchange reserves will not increase.

in the third case, the trade items have not changed, the capital items are in surplus, and the foreign exchange reserves have increased

3. External liabilities

The total external liabilities refer to the actual existing liabilities that have not been repaid by local residents of an economic system to non-local residents at a certain point, and the debtors must repay the principal and interest in the future. External liabilities can be divided into long-term liabilities and short-term liabilities. Long-term liabilities refer to debts with an original term of more than one year or no term, while short-term liabilities refer to debts with a term of one year or less at sight.

external debt does not include contingent liabilities. Contingent liabilities refer to those responsibilities that may occur when some clearly defined circumstances occur because of commitments. To be included in external liabilities, a liability must actually exist and not be repaid. Debt includes overdue principal and interest. Under normal circumstances, the promise of providing economic value in the future is not enough to constitute a claim, unless there is a transfer of project ownership, the provision of services or the payment of income. External liabilities reflect the level of non-equity liabilities at the end of the period and are a stock. In external liabilities, the change of debt stock in a period of time may not be equal to the debt flow that occurred during the period, or it may involve the change of stock that does not involve the flow. Examples of such changes include write-offs, debt reclassification when an entity moves from one institutional sector to another, and other pricing changes caused by external market forces.