Improve international balance of payments statistics to adapt to new economic and trade changes

Recently, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange revised the balance of payments for each quarter since 2019. What has been revised? Why revise? The answer to the question can be found in the "2025 China International Balance of Payments Report". The reporter noticed that the report explained in detail the reasons for adjusting the two statistical methods through two columns: "Improving International Transport Statistics Methods" and "Improving Cross border E-commerce Trade International Balance of Payments Statistics".

Let's first look at transportation, which is an important component of the international balance of payments service. There are numerous resident operators, and the cost of conducting a census is high; Non resident operators may not have operating entities within the country, making it difficult to obtain complete data; The collection of payment and receipt information by the International Transaction Reporting System does not fully comply with statistical principles... These are all reasons for the high complexity of transportation service statistics. In the past, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange would calculate transportation services based on bank foreign payment data and customs statistics. But with the steady progress of direct declaration of international balance of payments statistics for non-financial enterprises, domestic carriers and important overseas carriers' domestic representative offices are gradually included in the scope of declaration subjects, and the data sources for transportation statistics are more abundant.

In view of this, starting from the official compilation of the 2025 balance of payments statement, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange will mainly rely on enterprise survey data and industry data, supplemented by bank foreign payment and receipt data and customs statistics, to further improve the method of compiling transportation service data, and more objectively and accurately reflect the status of China's international transportation services. The report shows that due to the decrease in the amount of freight services stripped from the import and export volume of goods trade, the previously stripped freight amount needs to be restored to the import and export volume of goods trade. As a result, the international balance of payments transportation revenue and expenditure will be reduced by over 50 billion US dollars and 60 billion US dollars respectively in 2025, with adjusted amounts of 70.6 billion US dollars and 110.8 billion US dollars; The export and import of goods trade increased by over 50 billion US dollars and 80 billion US dollars respectively. The above adjustments mainly involve changes in the structure of goods trade and transportation services under the current account, and the current account surplus remains relatively stable.

If the improvement of transportation statistics is a reorganization of traditional trade patterns, then the improvement of cross-border e-commerce statistics is a new challenge facing the digital age. Tian Lihui, a finance professor at Nankai University, said that in recent years, the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce trade has helped small and medium-sized businesses around the world expand their sales channels and consumers obtain richer products. In this process, e-commerce platforms have gained corresponding profits by providing intermediary services. The platform service fee paid by sellers for selling goods on overseas e-commerce platforms is usually deducted directly from the seller's sales proceeds by the e-commerce platform, which increases the difficulty of accurately measuring the export of goods and import of services in the seller's economy.

According to the division of store operating entities and ownership entities of goods, there are roughly three situations for Chinese commodity sellers to settle on overseas e-commerce platforms. Scenario one is the entry of domestic enterprises and the ownership of goods by domestic enterprises, which means that domestic enterprises in China register and operate online stores on overseas e-commerce platforms, and the goods are transported from China to overseas warehouses. After the buyer places an order, the goods are shipped from the warehouse. After the buyer pays the purchase price, the e-commerce platform deducts commission and other service fees, and pays the remaining amount to the seller's designated account, which is then remitted back to China. In this case, if the goods have not been sold when they are transported from within China to overseas warehouses, they will not be included in China's international balance of payments for goods exports; After the buyer places an order, the actual sale of the goods is recorded in China's international balance of payments for goods exports. The export amount includes related expenses incurred before the sale of the goods, such as commissions and advertising fees paid by the seller to overseas e-commerce platforms and other service providers. At the same time, the service fees paid by Chinese sellers to overseas e-commerce platforms are included in China's service imports.

In the cases of "overseas company settlement and overseas company ownership" and "domestic company settlement and overseas company ownership", when Chinese enterprises export goods to overseas companies, it is recorded as Chinese goods export. As the ownership of goods sold on overseas platforms belongs to overseas companies, the service fees charged by e-commerce platforms are also borne by overseas companies. Therefore, transactions on overseas platforms are not included in China's international balance of payments statistics.

Data shows that in 2019, Chinese companies paid over 10 billion US dollars in commission, advertising fees, and other service fees to overseas e-commerce platforms, and showed a year-on-year growth trend; At the same time, the enterprise also pays a small amount of financial service fees such as remittance handling fees to overseas payment settlement institutions. According to the principles of balance of payments statistics, the value of goods sold on overseas e-commerce platforms should include this portion of service fees. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange has accordingly revised the import amounts of other commercial and financial services in the balance of payments since 2019, and correspondingly revised the export amounts of goods trade. Similarly, when Chinese service providers provide services to overseas sellers on import e-commerce platforms, they should record the corresponding exports of services and imports of goods from Chinese service providers to overseas sellers on import e-commerce platforms. After the improvement of statistical methods, the import and export volume of relevant service projects and goods in China has increased, and the current account surplus has remained stable.

Associate Professor Liu Chunsheng from Central University of Finance and Economics believes that the two adjusted and improved statistical methods will more accurately reflect the actual structure of transportation revenue and expenditure, cross-border e-commerce goods exports, and platform service fees, making international balance of payments data more accurate and in line with the development of new foreign trade formats. This will not change the overall surplus pattern of the current account, but also enhance statistical credibility, providing more reliable data support for macro decision-making and foreign trade policy formulation.

The relevant person in charge of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange stated that in the future, we will continue to steadily promote the special investigation of transportation enterprises, continuously enrich data sources, and improve data quality; And continuously track the development of cross-border e-commerce platform business, continuously improve relevant international balance of payments statistics on goods and services trade, and objectively demonstrate the changes and trends in China's goods and services trade development; At the same time, deepen the inter departmental data cooperation mechanism to provide more comprehensive and objective data support for accurately assessing China's foreign trade situation.