The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $200.02 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of May 2020 to $34.22 billion, down from $34.42 billion a fortnight earlier. When factoring out BDL’s portfolio of Lebanese Eurobonds amounting to $5.03 billion as per the disclosure made by the Central Bank, the latter’s foreign currency reserves would settle at $29.19 billion by mid-May. From another standpoint, gold reserves at BDL fell by 1.04% ($164.62 million) in the first half of May to $15.69 billion as gold prices worsened amid a stronger US dollar.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 8.30% ($3.10 billion) lower than the $37.32 billion reading reported at mid-May 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 31.05% ($3.72 billion) when benchmarked to the $11.97 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 130 months of debt service and constitute around 48.66% and 54.36% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $240.86 million during the first half of May to $149.10 billion owing to some 1.27% ($0.57 billion) expansion in the value of other assets to $45.67 billion representing capitalized  open market operations and seigniorage, coupled with a 0.13% appreciation in the value of the securities portfolio to $38.52 billion which altogether outweighed the 1.04% drop in the value of gold reserves to $15.69 billion and the 0.58% contraction in the value of foreign assets to $34.22 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 22.95% by mid-May 2020, compared to 23.12% by end of April, with the share of gold reserves concurrently contracting to 10.52% from 10.65% two weeks earlier.