Statistical Press Release – International Investment Position - September 2018
Today, Banco de Portugal publishes statistics, in Table A.18 of the Statistical Bulletin and in BPstat, on the international investment position (IIP) for September 2018.
At the end of the third quarter of 2018 Portugal’s IIP stood at -€205.4 billion, corresponding to a negative change of €1.3 billion from the end of 2017 (Chart 1).
Changes in the IIP were largely due to the negative impact of price changes (-€2.3 billion) and exchange rate changes (-€1.5 billion).
In the case of price changes, the negative impact on the IIP reflected the valuation of shares of resident firms in Portugal held by non-residents and the devaluation of central bank portfolio assets. In the case of exchange rate changes, a depreciation of the kwanza resulted in a reduction in the value in euro of Angolan assets held by residents.
Net transactions made a positive contribution of €0.9 billion to net foreign assets in Portugal. For more details on transactions, see the Statistical Press Release on the Balance of Payments.
As a result of the increase in GDP1 in the period under review, the IIP as a percentage of GDP recorded a positive change from -104.9% at the end of 2017 to -103.1% at the end of the third quarter of 2018.
Net external debt of Portugal, which is the result of the IIP mostly excluding capital instruments, gold bullion and financial derivatives, reached €180.1 billion at the end of September 2018. Despite the nominal increase, net external debt as a percentage of GDP declined by 1.3 percentage points from the end of 2017 to the end of September 2018. Net external debt went from 91.7% to 90.4% during this period, as a result of an increase in GDP which more than offset the nominal increase in debt (Chart 2).
Next update: 20 Feb. 2019
Note
1 The nominal GDP figures used for the calculation of the ratios are published by Statistics Portugal (Instituto Nacional de Estatística – INE). For the latest quarter, and when such figures are not available, the nominal GDP of this quarter is extrapolated, based on partial information disseminated by INE. Therefore, the estimate takes into account the GDP of the same quarter of the previous year, the published year-on-year rate of change in volume for the latest quarter, and the last published figure for the year-on-year growth rate of the GDP deflator. For the series on stocks, the nominal GDP used in the calculation of the ratios corresponds to the accumulated GDP of the last four quarters, regardless of the quarter to which it relates.
