IMF publishes first comprehensive survey of global portfolio investment
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The IMF announced on January 31 that it has published the Results of the 1997 Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey. The survey, which was conducted by the IMF, is the first major internationally coordinated statistical initiative designed to gauge portfolio claims on individual countries by the world’s principal investing nations.
The survey, which looked at 1997 overseas investments by 29 countries, shows that portfolio holdings of equity and long-term debt securities reached nearly $5.2 trillion at the end of 1997.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan were the largest investing countries, accounting for almost 68 percent of such holdings, according to the survey. The shares of the Netherlands, Italy, and France were each within 4–6 percent of the total.
The survey enabled identification of previously uncovered portfolio investment holdings totaling $750 billion. The newly identified assets were largely attributable to investors residing in Europe and North America, and were derived from completely new collections (for example, Canada, Ireland, Italy, and Spain) and an updated benchmark survey in the United States. Bermuda, the only offshore financial center participating in the survey, accounted for $133 billion. The survey also permitted identification of previously unmeasured liabilities of some $500 billion, mostly related to offshore financial centers (about 45 percent of the newly identified liabilities) and emerging market countries (about 36 percent). As a result of these adjustments, outstanding portfolio investment liabilities in both equity and long-term debt securities were estimated to be $9.4 trillion at the end of 1997, and outstanding portfolio investment asset positions were $7.7 trillion.
In principle, however, world portfolio investment assets should equal world portfolio investment liabilities. In practice, a discrepancy remains. Notwithstanding this improved coverage of portfolio investment assets, a difference of $1.7 trillion remained, representing about 18 percent of total liabilities, which is largely attributable to the considerable growth in portfolio investment channeled through offshore financial centers that did not participate in the survey.
By providing a snapshot of where portfolio assets are held and a basis for...
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