The external sector of a country’s economy refers to all international economic transactions between residents of the country (private and public sector) and the rest of the world.
Such transactions are recorded systematically and in detail within a framework that groups them into accounts, with each account focusing on a different aspect of the external sector.
The external sector accounts form part of an integrated system of statistics of the economy, therefore all definitions, classifications and accounting rules must be harmonised to ensure comparability and consistency with other macroeconomic data, such as those of national accounts, monetary statistics and government statistics.
Key external accounts