WRITTEN QUESTION E-2496/03 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission. World current account discrepancy.
Date: 2003-07-25
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU Member State, EU statistics, balance of payments, public accounting, trade statistics

3.4.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 84 E/493

(2004/C 84 E/0570)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2496/03

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(25 July 2003)

Subject: World current account discrepancy

Will the Commission estimate for last year, and project for this year, the size of the world current account
discrepancy both in euros and as a proportion of GDP? Will it give its explanation of the discrepancy and
say whether it believes that unrecorded foreign exchange receipts for some or all Member States are a
reason for it? If so, what is the likely scale of the under-recording and is there any reason to believe that it
might vary between Member States? What effect would such under-recording have on the observed current
account balances for the Member States?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(3 September 2003)

The Commission does not produce estimates of the size of the world current account discrepancy. The
International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the only international organisation for which enough information is
available to produce such estimates.

The latest world current account discrepancy figures, as calculated by the IMF, refer to the year 2001, and
they totalled EUR − 131,1 billion. Using the World Bank estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) for the
year 2001 (EUR 34 748 billion) the world current account discrepancy corresponds to 0,38 % of world
GDP. The average discrepancy for the period 1995-2001 was EUR − 49,4 billion, displaying a negative
sign during all the period 1995-2001 with the only exception of 1997.

Regarding Member States contribution to the global asymmetry,
the only source available to the
Commission (Eurostat) is the size of the asymmetries observed in the Balance of Payments of the Union (1).
In 2001 intra-Union current account asymmetries reached EUR 34,3 billion (0,39 % of Union GDP). The
imbalance is positive, meaning than reported credits exceed reported debits in the case of the Union
Balance of Payments. Preliminary results for 2002 point to a discrepancy of EUR 31,4 billion. This positive
imbalance represents a structural feature of the intra-Union current account balance over the period 1995-
2001. Over this period the intra-Union current account balance showed an average positive discrepancy of
EUR 42,5 billion.

For further details, two annexes are sent direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat.

(1) More detailed information is available in Eurostat, 2002. Asymmetries of Current account in the intra-UE balance of
(available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/Public/datashop/print-

payments, Working Papers ans studies
catalogue/EN?catalogue=Eurostat&collection=12-Working%20papers%20and%20studies&product=KS-AO-02-004-
__-N-EN).

(2004/C 84 E/0571)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2503/03

by Christopher Heaton-Harris (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(29 July 2003)

Subject: Car hire companies

I have received numerous letters from constituents complaining that when they have pre-booked an
‘all inclusive’ hire car, they then find they are liable to extra charges that dramatically increase the overall
cost of the car hire.