Central Bank of China

PRESS RELEASE Release Date: August 20, 2001




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External Debt and Banks' International Assets and Liabilities, R.O.C.

To provide more comprehensive information on the external assets and liabilities of the Republic of China (R.O.C.), the Bank from this August onwards releases "External Debt and Banks' International Assets and Liabilities, R.O.C." containing annual and quarterly data as an addendum to the Balance of Payments Quarterly (please see the attachment).

In terms of external debt, the previously released cover only long-term external public debt. The newly released data cover both external public debt and external private debt and are broken down into long-term and short-term debt. The data are available from the end of June 1999.

Banks' international assets and liabilities statistics are a newly-added category. The R.O.C. became a reporting country in the international financial statistics (creditor-based) compiled by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in the year 2000. Since then, the Bank has provided the BIS with our banks' international assets and liabilities statistics on a quarterly basis, which cover locational financial statistics of local banks and consolidated financial statistics of domestic banks. The data are available from the end of June 2000.

Locational financial statistics refer to financial assets and liabilities of local banks (comprising domestic banks, local branches of foreign banks, and their offshore banking units located in Taiwan) vis-a-vis non-residents in all currencies and vis-a-vis residents in foreign currencies. The data cover local banks' international assets and liabilities by instrument (loans & deposits, debt securities and others) and by customer (external positions and local positions), as well as local banks' external positions in foreign currencies.

Consolidated financial statistics measure the international claims of domestic banks vis-a-vis non-residents in all currencies and vis-a-vis residents in foreign currencies. Items released are the consolidated cross-border claims of domestic banks (including their offshore banking units and overseas branches) by area, maturity and sector.

The regular disclosure of "External Debt and Banks' International Assets and Liabilities, R.O.C." will help the public gain a clear understanding of the external assets and liabilities of our country, and will also serve as an important reference for the government to manage external liquidity and to monitor country risk exposure of financial institutions.


Attachment[EXCEL][PDF]