The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $473.73 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of February 2020 to $36.18 billion, down from $36.66 billion at end of January 2020. 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 $30.48 billion by mid-February. From another standpoint, the value of gold reserves at BDL contracted by 0.36% ($53.12 million) in the first half of February to $14.52 billion as gold prices decreased amid a rebound in global stock markets.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 7.74% ($3.03 billion) lower than the $39.22 billion reading reported as at mid-February 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 19.60% ($2.38 billion) when benchmarked to the $12.14 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 106 months of debt service and constitute around 49.10% and 55.39% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $1.06 billion during the first half of February to $143.64 billion owing to some 4.06% expansion in the value of other assets to $39.66 billion coupled with some 0.17% increase in the value of securities portfolio to $38.18 billion, which altogether outweighed the 1.29% drop in the value of foreign assets to $36.18 billion, the 0.36% decrease in the value of gold reserves to $14.52 billion and the 0.15% contraction in the loans to local financial sector to $14.84 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 25.19% by mid-February 2020, compared to 25.71% by end of January 2020, with that of gold reserves decreasing to 10.11% from 10.22% two weeks earlier.