News 31 Aug 2016
Open classification decisions can affect Finland’s general government debt
Statistics Finland and Eurostat are currently collaborating to assess the classification of certain public financial corporations and recordings of financial transactions in statistics. The open classification questions can have an effect especially on general government debt.
In terms of Finland, several questions regarding the application of methodological guidance are open, one of which concerns the sector classification of Finnvera plc and Finnish Export Credit Ltd. Based on Eurostat’s advice, these units may have to be recorded as part of central government finances. In addition, possible recording of cash collateral for derivative agreements into gross government debt is under examination. The total effect of the recordings would increase the debt relative to GDP by at most around three percentage points in 2015.
Possible changes may take effect already in the statistics on General government deficit and debt to be released at the end of September 2016.
Eurostat examines the general government deficit and debt figures reported by each member state to ensure that the recording practices of different countries are consistent. Data on government deficit and debt are based on the National Accounts and they are delivered to the European Commission twice a year as part of the excessive deficit procedure (EDP). An updated version of the methodological handbook that steers the compilation of the statistics was published in 2016.
Two blog posts (in Finnish) on the subject have been published previously in the blog for the Tieto&Trendit periodical: 15 January 2016 and 4 September 2015.
Inquiries:
Niina Suutarinen, tel. +358 29 551 2307
Mira Lehmuskoski, tel. +358 29 551 2708
email: financial.accounts@stat.fi