The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $489.73 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of December 2019 to $37.61 billion, down from $38.10 billion a fortnight ago. When factoring out BDL’s portfolio of Lebanese Eurobonds amounting to $5.7 billion as per the disclosure made by the Central Bank, the latter’s foreign currency reserves would settle at $31.91 billion by mid-December. From another standpoint, the value of gold reserves at BDL expanded by 1.05% ($140.92 million) in the first half of December to $13.57 billion as gold prices propelled to a five-week high on the back of some bearish U.S. economic data relating to producer price inflation and jobless claims.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 5.97% ($2.39 billion) lower than the $40.00 billion reading reported as at mid-December 2018. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 18.75% ($2.14 billion) when benchmarked to the $11.43 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 108 months of debt service and constitute around 52.23% and 57.76% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $1.96 billion during the first half of December to $141.75 billion owing to some 3.47% expansion in the value of other assets to $38.46 billion coupled with some 1.05% increase in the value of gold reserves to $13.57 billion and a 2.92% rise in the value of the securities portfolio to $36.90 billion, which altogether outweighed the 1.29% drop in the value of foreign assets to $37.61 billion and the 0.17% decline in loans to the local financial sector to $14.94 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 26.53% by mid-December 2019, compared to 27.26% at end of November, with that of gold reserves also contracting to 9.57% from 9.61% two weeks earlier.