The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $396.13 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of February 2020 to $35.79 billion, down from $36.18 billion a fortnight earlier. When factoring out BDL’s portfolio of Lebanese Eurobonds amounting to $5.5 billion as per the disclosure made by the Central Bank, the latter’s foreign currency reserves would settle at $30.27 billion by end of February. From another standpoint, the value of gold reserves at BDL expanded by 3.41% ($495.52 million) in the second half of February to $15.01 billion as gold prices increased driven by fears of the Corona virus.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 7.95% ($3.09 billion) lower than the $38.88 billion reading reported as at end of February 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 22.73% ($2.78 billion) when benchmarked to the $12.23 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 49.43% and 55.76% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $0.84 billion during the second half of February to $144.48 billion owing to some 1.73% expansion in the value of other assets to $40.35 billion coupled with some 3.41% appreciation in the value of gold reserves to $15.01 billion and a 0.14% increase in the value of the securities portfolio to $38.23 billion, which altogether outweighed the 1.09% drop in the value of foreign assets to $35.79 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 24.27% by end of February 2020, compared to 25.19% by mid-February, with that of gold reserves increasing to 10.39% from 10.11% two weeks earlier.