The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $41.89 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of March 2020 to $35.75 billion, down from $35.79 billion a fortnight earlier. When factoring out BDL’s portfolio of Lebanese Eurobonds amounting to $5.35 billion as per the disclosure made by the Central Bank, the latter’s foreign currency reserves would settle at $30.40 billion by mid-March. From another standpoint, the value of gold reserves at BDL contracted by 2.76% ($413.81 million) in the first half of March to $14.60 billion as gold prices decreased driven by weaker than expected U.S. CPI figures.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 7.77% ($3.01 billion) lower than the $38.76 billion reading reported as at mid-March 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 21.51% ($2.58 billion) when benchmarked to the $12.01 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 97 months of debt service and constitute around 48.91% and 55.05% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $178.58 million during the first half of March to $144.66 billion owing to some 1.49% expansion in the value of other assets to $40.95 billion coupled with some 0.15% appreciation in the value of the securities portfolio to $38.29 billion, which altogether outweighed the 2.76% drop in the value of gold reserves to $14.60 billion, the 0.12% decrease in the value of foreign assets to $35.75 billion and the 0.15% contraction in the value of loans to the local financial sector to $14.82 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets rose to 24.71% by mid-March 2020, compared to 24.27% by end of February, while that of gold reserves dropped to 10.09% from 10.39% two weeks earlier.