Balance Of Payments Measuring UK transactions with
the rest of the world
The Balance of Payments is one of the United
Kingdom's key economic statistics. It measures the
economic transactions between United Kingdom residents
and the rest of the world. It also draws a series
of balances between inward and outward transactions,
provides an overall net flow of transactions between
UK residents and the rest of the world and reports
how that flow is funded.
Economic transactions include:
- exports and imports of goods
such as oil, agricultural products, other raw materials,
machinery and transport equipment, computers, white
goods and clothing;
- exports and imports of services
such as international transport, travel, financial
and business services;
- income flows such as dividends
and interest earned by non-residents on investments
in the UK and by UK residents investing abroad;
- financial flows, such as investment
in shares debt securities and loans; and
- transfers, which are offsetting
entries to any one-sided transactions listed above,
such as foreign aid and funds brought by migrants
to the UK.
