European Union balance of payments/international investment position statistical methods

A revised version of the annual publication “European Union balance of payments/international investment position statistical methods” (“B.o.p. Book”) is released today. It documents the methodology and practices applied by European Union Member States and Acceding Countries for the compilation of balance of payments and international investment position statistics, thereby also improving the transparency of the external statistics of the euro area. In this eighth version, the B.o.p. Book incorporates both some changes to the methodological part, reflecting the publication of new data in 2005 (notably a geographical breakdown of the external statistics) and revised individual country chapters, reflecting recent improvements in the compilation systems for these statistics.

The B.o.p. Book is available on the ECB’s web site (http://www.ecb.europa.eu). Copies of the B.o.p. Book in hard copy format are available from the ECB, at the following address: