In order to further direct and standardize the verification of indirect declarations of statistics on the balance of payments which is conducted by the foreign exchange authorities at all levels, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange recently issued the newly-revised System for the Verification of the Indirect Declaration of Statistics on the Balance of Payments (hereinafter referred to as the Verification System), which will come into force as of February 1, 2011.

The revision mainly covers the following five issues: (1) improvements to the 2003 version of the Verification System and based on the existing system for indirect declarations of statistics on the balance of payments and the functions of its application system, the previous verification system was nullified; (2) the key tasks for verification of large-amount transactions and major transaction items were incorporated into the Verification System, with the previous provisions on the relevant verification incorporated into the Verification System, and the previous verification system for large-amount transactions is nullified; (3) the relevant quantitative indices involved in the verification are adjusted based on current circumstances; (4) the process for on-site verifications and the key tasks for the verifications of large-amount transactions are standardized; (5) the measures taken by the Departments of the Balance of Payments of the SAFE to impose penalties on acts in breach of the regulations on the declaration of statistics on the balance of payments and the operational procedures for transferring relevant cases to the authorities for foreign exchange inspections are specified.

The revision of the Verification System will better reflect operations of the existing declaration of statistics on the balance of payments and its supporting system.  Furthermore, the revision will improve the standards for verification of data declaration and clarify the operational procedures for the verification, which will play an active role in standardizing the law-based administration of statistics on the balance of payments, increasing the efficiency of the verification and improving the quality of the data declaration.