The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $1.51 billion contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of August 2020 to $28.46 billion, down from $29.97 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 $23.43 billion by end of August. From another standpoint, gold reserves at BDL rose by 0.88% ($158.44 million) in the second half of August to $18.12 billion as gold prices increased amid renewed tensions between the US and China.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 26.42% ($10.22 billion) lower than the $38.68 billion reading reported in end of August 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 28.75% ($4.05 billion) when benchmarked to the $14.08 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 162 months of debt service and constitute around 44.49% and 49.30% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet contracted by $0.45 billion during the second half of August to $154.46 billion owing to the 5.04% drop in the value of foreign assets to $28.46 billion which outweighed the 1.43% ($0.76 billion) rise in the value of other assets to $53.86 billion representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage, coupled with a 0.88% increase in the value of gold reserves to $18.12 billion and the 0.37% improvement in the value of securities portfolio to $39.14 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 18.43% by end of August 2020, compared to 19.35% by mid-August, while the share of gold reserves rose to 11.73% from 11.60% two weeks earlier.