The Data: Coverage, Periodicity, and Timeliness

Coverage characteristics

Data is in millions of New Zealand dollars as at the close of business on the last banking day of the month.

The main focus is on an estimate of wholesale New Zealand Government securities held on behalf of non-residents. All debt securities issued in New Zealand are covered by the survey.

Government debt securities include:

(a) Government interest bearing securities which include Government bonds and Treasury bills

(b) State Owned Enterprises (SOE)

(c) (d) Local authorities Other government

Private sector securities included are:

(a) Corporate bonds

(b) Commercial paper

(c) Registered Certificates of Deposits (RCDs)

The survey seeks to identify the nominal amount of New Zealand debt securities held on behalf of non-residents. With respect to NZ Government securities, since March 1994 this has had any securities held under reverse repurchase agreements (repos).

From July 2005, the survey methodology has been revised, including a more comprehensive coverage of debt securities, reverse repurchase agreements and repurchase agreements (repos) and improved validation of data – now against holdings in the New Zealand Central Securities Depository Limited (NZCSD) and also data held by the relevant Registrar (e.g. Computershare).

Non-resident holdings for Government securities is defined as:

• Securities held outright by a non-resident (“N’) plus those securities bought by a New Zealand institution from a non-resident under a repurchase agreement (a “reverse repurchase” or “V”), less those securities sold by a New Zealand institution to a non-resident under a repurchase agreements (“R”).

Algebraically: Net holdings = N + V - R

The survey covers local nominee companies and selected bank front offices, and securities that are registered direct, to determine the amount of offshore participation.

Statistics generated from the survey include the total Government securities held for non-residents, as a share of these securities in the hands of the market (Table D(0)), followed by a breakdown by Government bonds (Table D6) and by Treasury Bills (Table D7) as a share of these securities in the hands of the market (this excludes bonds and bills held by the Earthquake Commission and RBNZ).

More detailed analysis is available, including holdings by the ten most active countries of domicile of non-residents (Table D(a)) – note the holdings of a particular country can be negative once outright holdings have been netted with repurchases; a breakdown by loan prefix for Government bonds(Table D(b)) and by maturity for Treasury bills (Table D(c)). The non-residents holdings of other government securities (Table D(d)) covers State-owned enterprise, Local Authority and other government securities. Securities issued by private sector New Zealand organisations – corporate bonds, commercial paper and RCDs are available in Table D(e).

Periodicity

Monthly.

Timeliness

A summary of the survey is released via electronic media and also released on to our website on or around the 15th day of the month following the reference month.

Access by the public

Advance release calendar

The “Advance Release Calendar” is updated and released each Friday on the website. This is a long-term plan of scheduled releases.

Integrity

Dissemination of terms and conditions under which official statistics are produced, including confidentiality of individual responses

Data are collected under Section 36 of The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989 (The Act).

The Reserve bank of New Zealand publishes only aggregated data. Individual institutional data remain confidential subject to the Bank’s legal obligations.

Provision of information about revisions and advance notice of major changes in methodology

Structural break:

(a) Reverse repurchase agreement transactions have been included in the survey since March 1994.

(b) Reserve Bank of New Zealand reverse repo transactions executed in its open Market Operations (OMO) are included from April 2002. At the same time the range of institutions captured in the “registered direct” category was widened from April 2002. This had some compositional impacts on estimates of holdings by “Country of residence”.

(c) From July 2005, the survey methodology has been revised, including a more comprehensive coverage of debt securities, reverse repurchase agreements and repurchase agreements (repos) and improved validation of data – now against holdings in the New Zealand Central Securities Depository Limited (NZCSD) and also data held by the relevant Registrar (e.g. Computershare).

Provisional data are italicised. Data are deemed provisional when a series is under review. New data are in bold font in the latest release. Revisions are generally published when tables are updated and released and are marked in bold. Should revisions need to be made more promptly, a note is posted on the Internet website under "Revisions to Tables".

Quality

Dissemination of documentation on methodology and sources used in preparing statistics

Respondents complete a record-by-record “flat file” each month, reporting either in aggregate by security, or by holding, for each security, the country of domicile of the holding, the face value of the holding and whether the security was held outright (“N”), bought from a non-resident under a repurchase agreement (a “reverse repurchase” or “V”) or sold to a non-resident under a repurchase agreements (“R”).

Surveys that involve collecting survey data on transactions in government securities are complicated by the difficulty of identifying transaction types and related issues surrounding ownership. This survey is an estimate of non-resident ownership.

Dissemination of statistics that support statistical cross-checks and provide assurance of reasonableness

Data is validated against holdings in the New Zealand Central Securities Depository Limited (NZCSD) and also data held by the relevant Registrar (e.g. Computershare).