The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $292.14 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of September 2020 to $28.17 billion, down from $28.46 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 $23.14 billion by mid-September. From another standpoint, gold reserves at BDL rose by 0.03% ($4.70 million) in the first half of September to $18.13 billion as gold prices increased amid renewed concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the US economy.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 27.22% ($10.54 billion) lower than the $38.70 billion reading reported in mid-September 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 30.59% ($4.25 billion) when benchmarked to the $13.88 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 184 months of debt service and constitute around 44.02% and 49.00% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $1.02 billion during the first half of September to $155.48 billion owing to the 2.18% ($1.17 billion) rise in the value of other assets to $55.03 billion representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage, coupled with a 0.40% improvement in the value of the securities portfolio to $39.29 billion and a 0.03% increase in the value of gold reserves to $18.13 billion, which altogether outweighed the 1.03% drop in the value of foreign assets to $28.17 billion and the 0.15% decline in the value of loans to the local financial sector to $14.59 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 18.12% by mid-September 2020, compared to 18.43% by end of August, with the share of gold reserves also decreasing to 11.66% from 11.73% two weeks earlier.