Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Government Sector Financial Balance Sheet

The Central Bank have released their Quarterly Financial Accounts for Q1 2012 (release here; data here). This is the financial position of the government sector.

Government Balance Sheet Q1 2012

The currency assets of the government are the large cash reserves that have been maintained including more than €13 billion that was in the Exchequer Account.  The currency liabilities are mainly the state-savings schemes and deposits with An Post.

The assets under securities other than shares are mainly bonds held by the government sector.  The NTMA has some bonds in the discretionary portfolio of the NPRF and the state also holds €3 billion of subordinated bonds in the covered banks which forms part of their contingent capital.  The liabilities under this heading is almost entirely made up of the outstanding government bonds.

The €9 billion of loans held as assets will include loans forwarded by state agencies such as the Housing Finance Association.  The €80 billion of loan liabilities is primarily made up of €28.1 billion of promissory notes owed to the IBRC and €42.9 billion of loans drawn down as part of the EU/IMF programme.

The quoted shares will be the state’s shareholding in Bank of Ireland (15%), Allied Irish Bank (99.8%) and Irish Life & Permanent (99.4%) as well a 30% stake in Aer Lingus.  The unquoted shares represents the value of semi-state companies such as the ESB, Bord Gais, Coillte, Dublin Airport Authority and others.

The net financial position has €69.5 billion of financial assets partially offsetting €186.7 billion of financial liabilities giving an outcome of minus €117.2 billion.  The government sector’s net financial position improved from the start of the dataset in 2002 right through to the end of 2007 by which time the net position was negative €2.1 billion.  In the four years since the government sector’s financial position has deteriorated by €115 billion.

1 comment:

  1. and these figures are about as reliable as those drawn up by a 2 year old!

    ReplyDelete

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