The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $709.35 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of August 2020 to $29.97 billion, down from $30.68 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 $24.94 billion by mid-August. From another standpoint, gold reserves at BDL fell by 0.41% ($74.33 million) in the first half of August to $17.97 billion as gold prices decreased amid better than expected US Producer Price Index outcomes.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 19.53% ($7.27 billion) lower than the $37.25 billion reading reported in mid-August 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 28.93% ($4.03 billion) when benchmarked to the $13.94 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 167 months of debt service and constitute around 45.94% and 50.90% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $0.77 billion during the first half of August to $154.91 billion owing to some 2.75% ($1.42 billion) rise in the value of other assets to $53.10 billion representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage, coupled with a 0.42% increase in the value of securities portfolio to $38.99 billion which outweighed the 2.31% drop in the value of foreign assets to $29.97 billion and a 0.41% contraction in the value of gold reserves to $17.97 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 19.35% by mid-August 2020, compared to 19.91% by end of July, with the share of gold reserves decreasing to 11.60% from 11.70% two weeks earlier.