The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $305.61 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of January 2020 to $36.97 billion, down from $37.27 billion at year-end 2019. 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 $31.27 billion by mid-January. From another standpoint, the value of gold reserves at BDL expanded by 2.70% ($376.18 million) in the first half of January to $14.31 billion as gold prices increased amid weaker than expected U.S. Producer Price Index data.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 6.85% ($2.72 billion) lower than the $39.69 billion reading reported as at mid-January 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 20.22% ($2.41 billion) when benchmarked to the $11.91 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 107 months of debt service and constitute around 50.94% and 56.59% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $0.60 billion during the first half of January to $141.96 billion owing to some 1.51% expansion in the value of other assets to $37.51 billion coupled with some 2.70% increase in the value of gold reserves to $14.31 billion and a 0.15% rise in the value of securities portfolio to $38.05 billion, which altogether outweighed the 0.82% drop in the value of foreign assets to $36.97 billion and the 0.55% decrease in the loans to the local financial sector to $14.86 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 26.04% by Mid-January 2020, compared to 26.37% by end of December 2019, while that of gold reserves widened to 10.08% from 9.86% two weeks earlier.