The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $219.20 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of November 2020 to $25.03 billion, down from $25.25 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 $20.00 billion by end of November. Similarly, gold reserves at BDL contracted by 5.68% ($985.41 million) in the second half of November to $16.36 billion as gold prices dwindled as investors flocked to riskier instruments over optimism concerning an end to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 34.30% ($13.07 billion) lower than the $38.10 billion reading reported at end of November 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 21.79% ($2.93 billion) when benchmarked to the $13.43 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 207.98 months of debt service and constitute around 38.35% and 42.74% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet contracted by $217.50 million during the second half of November to $156.18 billion owing to the 5.68% contraction in gold reserves to $16.36 billion, the 0.87% drop in the value of foreign assets to $25.03 billion, and the 0.10% dip in loans to the local financial sector to $14.47 billion which altogether outweighed the 1.57% ($0.93 billion) rise in the value of other assets representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage to $60.01 billion and the 0.19% increase in the value of the securities portfolio to $40.05 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 16.03% by end of November 2020, compared to 16.15% by mid-November, with the share of gold reserves also decreasing to 10.47% from 11.09% two weeks earlier.