The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $189.63 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of November 2020 to $25.25 billion, down from $25.44 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 $20.22 billion by mid-November. From another standpoint, gold reserves at BDL increased by 0.32% ($55.33 million) in the first half of November to $17.34 billion as gold prices increased driven by a demand for the commodity as an inflation hedge in the wake of a potential U.S. stimulus package to dampen the impact of the COVID-19 virus.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 32.00% ($11.88 billion) lower than the $37.13 billion reading reported in mid-November 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 28.47% ($3.84 billion) when benchmarked to the $13.50 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 214.87 months of debt service and constitute around 39.62% and 44.15% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet increased by $1.18 billion during the first half of November to $156.39 billion owing to the 2.29% ($1.32 billion) rise in the value of other assets representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage to $59.08 billion, the 0.16% increase in the value of the securities portfolio to $39.97 billion and the 0.32% expansion in gold reserves to $17.34 billion which altogether outweighed the 0.75% drop in the value of foreign assets to $25.25 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 16.15% by mid November 2020, compared to 16.39% by end of October, with the share of gold reserves also decreasing to 11.09% from 11.14% two weeks earlier.