The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $232.03 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of October 2020 to $25.70 billion, down from $25.93 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 $20.67 billion by mid-October. From another standpoint, gold reserves at BDL increased by 0.51% ($88.53 million) in the first half of October to $17.45 billion as gold prices improved thanks to an increase in safe haven demand due to the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 32.62% ($12.44 billion) lower than the $38.13 billion reading reported at mid-October 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 26.57% ($3.66 billion) when benchmarked to the $13.79 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 170 months of debt service and constitute around 40.44% and 44.92% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet increased by $1.45 billion during the first half of October to $154.77 billion owing to the 0.51% appreciation in the value of gold reserves to $17.45 billion, the 2.08% ($1.16 billion) rise in the value of other assets representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage to $56.96 billion and the 1.24% hike in the value of the securities portfolio to $39.84 billion which altogether outweighed the 0.89% drop in the value of foreign assets to $25.70 billion and the 0.41% contraction in loans to the local financial sector to $14.56 billion

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 16.60% by mid-October 2020, compared to 16.91% as at end of September, with the share of gold reserves also decreasing to 11.28% from 11.32% two weeks earlier.