Reconciliation of the Canadian - U.S. Current Account, 2002 and 2003

Canada's balance of payments with the United States should be, in principle, the mirror image of the U.S. balance of payments with Canada. In practice, however, the two countries' statistics have conceptual, methodological and data differences.

Each year, the two countries' balance of payments current accounts are reconciled to reflect how the estimates would appear if both countries used common definitions, methodologies and data sources. Such reconciliation is important because of the extensive economic links between the two countries and the need to explain differences in their published official bilateral estimates.