The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $25.88 billion expansion in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of September 2019 to $38.70 billion, up from $36.68 billion a fortnight ago. When factoring out BDL’s portfolio of Lebanese Eurobonds amounting to $3.2 billion as per the disclosure made by the Central Bank, the latter’s foreign currency reserves would settle at $35.50 billion by Mid-September. In addition, the value of gold reserves at BDL fell by 1.38% ($194.59 million) in the first half of September to $13.88 billion as gold prices dropped amid the larger than anticipated easing of monetary policy by the European Central Bank.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 10.67% ($4.62 billion) lower than the $43.33 billion reading reported at Mid-September 2018. On the other hand, the value of gold reserves rose by 24.72% ($2.75 billion) when benchmarked to the $11.13 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s foreign assets and gold reserves combined cover some 116 months of debt service and constitute around 61.15% and 68.23% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $0.65 billion during the first half of September to $134.89 billion, owing to the 2.13% rise in the value of other assets to $33.42 billion, the 0.45% improvement in the value of securities portfolio to $33.55 billion and the 0.07% uptick in the value of foreign assets to $38.70 billion which altogether outweighed the 1.38% drop in the value of gold reserves to $13.88 billion and the 0.14% decrease in the loans to the local financial sector to $15.07 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets contracted to 28.69% by Mid-September 2019 compared to 28.81% by end of August, with that of gold reserves dropping to 10.29% from 10.49% two weeks earlier.