Background summary

These statistics are a product of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Finance Statistics (1). They bring together data that are currently compiled and published separately by the contributing international agencies on components of countries' external debt and international reserve assets. This should facilitate timely and frequent access by a broad range of users to a single data set.

These data are mostly from creditor and market sources, but also include information provided by the debtor countries themselves. Not all the series are yet available on a quarterly basis and there are some gaps in coverage. The most important gaps relate to (i) non-officially guaranteed suppliers credit not channeled through banks (e.g., direct investment debt); (ii) private placements of debt securities; (iii) domestically issued debt held by nonresidents; and (iv) deposits of nonresidents in domestic institutions. There is also some overlapping coverage in the areas of official bank lending (lines A and F), holdings of international debt securities (lines A and B) and debt maturing within one year (lines G and H). As a result, aggregates of individual country data may either understate or overstate total external debt.

At present, the statistics cover – and use the nomenclature of – all developing countries and countries in transition as defined by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee in their list of aid recipients (i.e. all non-OECD countries and territories plus the Czech Republic, Hungary, Korea, Mexico, Poland and Turkey). The sources, definitions and coverage of individual series are explained in detail in the accompanying methodological notes.

The organisations collaborating on these statistics are working to improve their collection systems and to gradually improve their content (in terms of quality, coverage, frequency and timeliness), as part of more general efforts towards greater transparency.

The data series in each row of the table are described briefly in the matrix below. The columns of the table cover:

Data Series		Source	Description
External debt - all maturities
A	Bank loans	BIS	Loans from banks resident in 28 countries.
B	Debt securities issued abroad	BIS	Money market instruments, bonds and notes issued in international markets by both public and private sector borrowers.
C	Brady bonds	World Bank	Bonds issued to restructure commercial bank debt under the 1989 Brady Plan.
D	Non-bank trade credits	OECD	Official and officially guaranteed non-bank export credits from 25 OECD countries.
E	Multilateral claims (African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, IDB, IMF, World Bank)	African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, IDB, IMF, World Bank	Loans from the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank, use of IMF credit, and IBRD loans and IDA credits from the World Bank.
F	Official bilateral loans (DAC creditors)	OECD	Concessional (aid) and other loans provided mainly for developmental purposes by the 21 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee and Korea as of 2000.
Debt due within a year Liabilities with an original maturity of one year or less, plus repayments due within the next 12 months on liabilities with an original maturity of over a year, plus arrears.
G	Liabilities to banks	BIS	Liabilities to banks which are nationals of (i.e. headquartered in) 23 countries and which report their claims on a worldwide consolidated basis. The data include holdings of short-term securities which are also included in line H.
H	Debt securities issued abroad	BIS	Money market instruments, bonds and notes issued in international markets by both public and private sector borrowers. The data include securities held by foreign banks which are also included in line G.
I	Non-bank trade credits	OECD	Official and officially guaranteed non-bank export credits from 25 OECD countries.
Memorandum items
J	Total liabilities to banks (locational)	BIS	Liabilities to banks resident in 28 countries (i.e. line A plus banks' holdings of debt securities which are partly included in line B plus other claims which are not loans or debt securities).
K	Total liabilities to banks (consolidated)	BIS	Liabilities to banks which are nationalsof (i.e. headquartered in) 23 countries and which report their claims on a worldwide consolidated basis, both short term (line G) and long term liabilities.
L	Total trade credits	OECD	Official and officially guaranteed export credits from 25 OECD countries.
M	Total claims on banks (locational)	BIS	Claims on banks resident in 28 countries.
N	International reserve assets (excluding gold)	IMF	Monetary authorities' holdings of SDRs, reserve position in the Fund and foreign exchange assets.

Note 1: The Inter-Agency Task Force on Finance Statistics is one of the interagency task forces endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission and the Administrative Committee on Coordination - Sub-Committee on Statistical Activities and was set up in 1992. It was reconvened in 1998 to co-ordinate work among the participating agencies to improve the quality, transparency, timeliness and availability of data on external debt and international reserve assets. The Task Force is chaired by the IMF and includes representatives from the four organisations that have collaborated to produce this data - the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Bank - as well as from the European Central Bank, European Statistical Office and the United Nations.