On Thursday, September 2 the Central Bank of Iceland issued a press release on the balance of payments and external position in the second quarter of 2004. It was also announced that today, Monday September 6, 2004, the Central Bank will publish tables showing the balance of payments and external position on the Statistics page of its website (www.sedlabanki.is ). Furthermore, the Central Bank reported that earlier figures have been revised. The tables have now been published. Attention should be drawn to the revision of earlier statistics, in particular because it reveals a smaller current account deficit in 2003 than had been reported earlier, at just under 32 billion krónur instead of 43.5 b.kr. The adjustment is entirely due to new data on net balance of income, i.e. interest and dividends. Also, the surplus on the capital and financial account was much smaller  in 2003 than had been suggested by previously published provisional figures and consequently the net errors and omissions have decreased. Other changes were minor.

All countries experience great uncertainties in presenting their balance of payments statistics and final data are generally reported with a considerable lag. Liberalisation of capital markets and diversification of financial transactions have also complicated the process of acquiring precise and timely data on capital movements between Iceland and abroad.

It should also be pointed out an error crept into one figure in the press release on September 2, and the columns were misplaced for the ISK per USD exchange rate in the table showing the external position. Both have since been corrected in the press release as published on the Bank's website.

For further information contact Jakob Gunnarsson, Division Chief at the Statistics Department of the Central Bank of Iceland, tel. (+354) 569-9600.

No. 24/2004

September 6, 2004