Attempting to better serve the interests of information users, in addition to the IMF-approved set of standard publications, Russia's balance of payments statistics compilers have adopted it as a rule to regularly disseminate estimates of such indicator as private capital inflows/outflows.

As Russia's balance of payments is characterized by sustainable positive surpluses in its current account balance, and private capital flows are highly volatile, the latter attracts particular attention. The indicator comprises both the components of the balance of payments' financial account relating to changes in banks' and other sectors' assets and liabilities, and balance of payments' net errors and omissions. It is believed that this item mainly arise from the problems in the statistical recording of the private sector financial transactions. As a result of summing up the mentioned balance of payments' items, the general volume of private capital inflows/outflows in the reported period is received, which also is better understood by wider audiences of users than a great number of components of the financial account or the “minus” sign used to denote growth in external assets.

Estimates of this indicator are quarterly published by the Bank of Russia on its web-site, not later than three days following the end of the reported quarter and simultaneously with the publication of the balance of payments' estimates for the lapsed quarter. Both sets of estimates are not fully based on the reported data but rather on monitoring public media information on transactions with non-residents. The estimates, which are published within the three days' timeframe, are not fully confirmed by the reported data 90 days' after. Nevertheless, it is possible to state that the estimates of main balance of payments' derived measures, including private capital inflows/outflows, are usually close to the actual data, firstly, due to their net, balancing nature of computation, and, secondly, because the net errors and omissions offsets inadequacies in estimating separate financial account items.

Keywords: Statistic; Estimates; Capital

Biography: Lydia Troshina is director of the Balance of Payments Department of the Bank of Russia, who is in charge of the external sector statistics for Russia.