The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $152.36 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of December 2020 to $24.88 billion, down from $25.03 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 $19.85 billion by mid-December. On the other hand, gold reserves at BDL rose by 4.10% ($671.39 million) in the first half of December to $17.03 billion as gold prices increased amid the Federal Reserve’s weaker than expected sentiment within New York’s manufacturing sector for the third month in a row, in addition to rising inflation pressures.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 33.85% ($12.73 billion) lower than the $37.61 billion reading reported at mid-December 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 25.47% ($3.46 billion) when benchmarked to the $13.57 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 210.95 months of debt service and constitute around 38.80% and 43.21% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $2.05 billion during the first half of December to $158.23 billion owing to the 2.77% ($1.66 billion) rise in the value of other assets representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage to $61.67 billion, the 4.10% increase in gold reserves to $17.03 billion and the 0.16% uptick in the value of the securities portfolio to $40.11 billion which altogether outweighed the 1.32% drop in loans to the local financial sector to $14.28 billion and the 0.61% drop in the value of foreign assets to $24.88 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets dropped to 15.72% by mid-December 2020, compared to 16.03% by end of November, while the share of gold reserves increased to 10.76% from 10.47% two weeks earlier.