Definition: Losses of government trading organizations

Category: SNA

[Export subsidies] Losses of government trading organizations consist of losses incurred as a matter of deliberate government policy by government trading organizations whose function is to buy the products of resident enterprises and then sell them at lower prices to non-residents. The difference between the buying and selling prices is an export subsidy.

[Other subsidies on products] Losses of government trading organizations consist of the losses incurred by government trading organizations whose function is to buy and sell the products of resident enterprises. When such organizations incur losses as a matter of deliberate government economic or social policy by selling at lower prices than those at which they purchased the goods, the difference between the purchase and the selling prices should be treated as a subsidy.

These definitions are used both in SNA 1993 (§ 7.76 and 7.78) and in SNA 2008 (§ 7.103 and 7.105). http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/statmanuals/files/SNA2008.pdf United Nations, System of National Accounts (SNA) 1993, United Nations, New York, 1993