IMF - BOPTEG - THE TREATMENT OF NON-MONETARY GOLD IN THE MACRO ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS Executive summary of a paper prepared for the UK Office for National Statistics Philip Turnbull, Consultant in Official Statistics August

ISSUES PAPER (BOPTEG) # 27A
THE TREATMENT OF NON-MONETARY GOLD IN THE MACRO ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS
Executive summary of a paper prepared for the UK Office for National Statistics
Philip Turnbull, Consultant in Official Statistics
August 2004

Executive Summary of a paper prepared for the UK Office for National Statistics
Philip Turnbull, Consultant in Official Statistics, August 2004

INTRODUCTION

"1. This paper is an executive summary of the full paper. It is designed to be the appropriate Issues paper for BOPTEG. The paper has been commissioned by the UK Office for National Statistics and will be presented to international statistical expert groups reviewing the existing international standards on national accounts and balance of payments. The issue addressed is the current and future treatment of gold in the System of National Accounts 1993 (SNA93 and planned revision) and the 5th edition of the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM5 and planned revision). Any changes would naturally also apply to other macro-economic standards e.g. those for Monetary and Financial Statistics (MFS) and for Government Finance Statistics (GFS).

2. The proposal in this paper is to extend the statistical treatment of gold as a financial asset to all financial institutions, rather than just the monetary authorities as in the present standards. Thus transactions and holdings of gold would be split into two categories: commodity gold, classified as trade in goods and inventories or valuables; and financial gold (including monetary gold) classified as a financial asset.

3. This paper supports and amplifies BOPTEG Issues Paper #27 prepared by the Bank of Japan, May 2004"

[MRT: whoah!]

Source: http://www.imf.org/External/NP/sta/bop/pdf/bopteg27a.pdf