Changes to the way leases are recorded in Europe have caused delays to the release of national economic statistics in Ireland, according to a report in the Irish Times.
Irish government statisticians are to revise 15 years of data to fully reflect aircraft leasing in Ireland for the first time.
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The context behind the change are new European statistical rules obliging states to record trade in aircraft when economic ownership of the aircraft is transferred between an entity in the state and an entity in another country, regardless of where the aircraft is registered for aviation purposes.
These updated rules mean that figures on the growth of the Irish economy in Q1 of the year have been delayed for weeks. , said the newspaper.
The report notes that the change is significant in the Irish context, as leasing firms established in the country account for some 10% of the world’s civilian aircraft, despite the fact most of the aircraft are not registered in Ireland.
Merrion Capital economist Alan McQuaid was quoted as saying:"The aircraft owned by the leasing firms based in Ireland are worth somewhere between 50 billion and 100 billion," the Irish Times quoted Merrion Capital economist Alan McQuaid as writing.
"Therefore, the potential effects of operations on this scale on Irish national accounting will be large. While in this case there will be no effect on GDP or GNP, it will impact on Ireland’s current account surplus, which is an important indicator of whether the economy is on a sustainable growth path."
McQuaid reportedly added: "The complexity of these technical statistical quirks has made the task of explaining the Irish economy to a foreign audience very difficult in recent years. Nowadays, with so much reliance on foreign markets to finance the country’s sizeable national debt, there are potential real costs at stake if Ireland’s foreign lenders can’t get to grips with puzzling Irish economic data."
