EN ECB -PUBLIC 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK  
of 16 August 2012  
on foreign trade reporting requirements  
(CON/2012/ 66) 
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 28 June 2012, the European Central Bank (ECB) received a request from the Federal Ministry of 
Economics and Technology for an opinion on the  draft r egulation (hereinafter the ‘draft regulation’)  
amending the Regulation on foreign trade1 (hereinafter the ‘RFT’ ). 
The ECB’s competence to deliver an opinion is based on Article 127(4) and Article 282(5) of the Treaty 
on the Functioning of the European Union and the third and fourth indent s of Article  2(1) of Council 
Decision 98/415/EC of 29  June 1998 on the consultation of the European Central Bank by national 
authorities regarding draft legislative provisions2, as the draft regulation relates to the Deutsche 
Bundesbank and the collection and distribution of balance of payments statistics. In accordance with the first sentence of Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Central Bank, the Governing 
Council has adopted this opinion. 
 
1.  Purpose of the draft regulation  
1.1 The draft regulation will adapt the reporting requirements under the RFT  to international standards 
developed by the Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics of the International Monetary Fu nd 
(IMF)
3 and transposed into Union law under : (a) Commission Regulation (EU) No 555/2012 of 
22 June 2012 amending Regulation (EC) No 184/2005 of the European Parliament and of the 
Council on Community statistics concerning balance of payments, international trade in services 
and foreign direct investment, as regards the update of data requirements and definitions4, and 
(b) Guideline ECB/2011/23 of 9 December 2011 on the statistical reporting requirements of the 
European Central Bank in the field of externa l statistics5, both of  which will apply from  
1 June 2014.  
1.2 Section 63 of t he draft regulation also streamlines the RFT  and inserts limited amendments related 
to the functioning of the Single Euro Payments Area.  
                                                 
1  Regulation on for eign trade, Bundes gesetz blatt I, 22.11.1993,  p. 1934, 2493.  
2  OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42.  
3  See IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics , ‘IMF ’s Balance of Payments and International Investment 
Position Manual , sixth Edition ’, August 2011, available on the IMF ’s website at www.imf.org.  
4  OJ L 166, 27.6.2012, p. 22.  
5  OJ L 65, 3.3.2012 , p. 1 . 
ECB -PUBLIC  
2  
2. General observation s  
In accordance wi th Article 5.1 of the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and the European 
Central Bank, the ECB, assisted by the national central banks, collects the necessary statistical 
information in order to undertake the tasks of the ESCB.  As stated in the ‘Public commitment on 
European Statistics by the ESCB ’6, the ECB attaches great importance to the quality of its statistics. This 
concerns, inter alia , the euro area balance of payments and international investment position statistics 
whose aim is to su pport the ECB’s monetary policy and other Eurosystem tasks. Hence, t he ECB broadly 
welcomes this draft regulation which will ensure consistency with the reporting requirements under 
Guideline ECB/2011/23 and facilitate adherence to the principles of the EC B Statistics Quality 
Framework.  
 
3. Specific observations  
The ECB  particularly  welcomes the following amendment s introduced by the draft regulation:  
(a) Amendments to the template in Annex Z 4 of the RFT , whereby additional information is to be 
provided on the International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) code and on the nominal 
value/ number of shares, with respect  to payments for direct investments denominated in shares. 
These amendment s enable transactions to be more clearly distinguished  betwee n those that belong 
to ‘direct investment’ and ‘portfolio investment’ , as required in Table 2 (Financial Account) of 
Annex II to  Guideline ECB/2011/ 23; 
(b) Amendments to Article 62(3) of the RFT  and new templates introduced in Annex Z 5A regarding 
claims and liabilities arising from financial relationships with related foreign non- banks. The se 
templates enable the three types of direct investment relationships required under section 6.1 of 
Annex III to Guideline ECB/2011/ 237 to be distinguished. Furthermore , the ne w currency 
breakdown enables a more accurate compilation of derived transactions and revaluations due to 
exchange rate changes as required in Table 2 (Financial Account) and Table 4 of Annex II to 
Guideline ECB/2011/ 23; 
(c) Amendment to the templat e in Annex Z 5B , which replaces annual reporting with quarterly 
reporting of cross -border positions on financial derivatives of resident non- banks , as required in 
Table 4 of Annex II to  Guideline ECB/2011/23. C onsistent with its previous opinion8, the ECB 
welcomes the early introduction of the quarterly reporting obligations by the draft regulation.  
 
                                                 
6  All publications are a vailable on the ECB’s website at www.ecb.europa.eu . 
7  The three types of direct investment relationships are: (a) direct investors’  investment in direct investment enterprises, 
(b) investments from the direct investment enterprises to the direct investor (reverse investment), and (c) investments 
between fellow enterprises.  
8  See paragraph 3 of Opinion CON/2009/97 which  refers to Guid eline ECB/2004/15 which was  subsequently repla ced by 
Guideline ECB/2011/23.  
ECB -PUBLIC  
3 This opinion will be published on the ECB’s w ebsite.  
 
 
Done at Frankfurt am Main, 16 August 2012 . 
 
[signed]  
 
The President of the ECB  
Mario DRAGHI