The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $790.23 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of December 2020 to $24.09 billion, down from $24.88 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 $19.06 billion by end of December. On the other hand, gold reserves at BDL rose by 1.74% ($296.96 million) in the second half of December to $17.32 billion as gold prices increased amid lower than expected PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) price index figures.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 35.37% ($13.18 billion) lower than the $37.27 billion reading reported at end of December 2019. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 24.29% ($3.39 billion) when benchmarked to the $13.94 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 208.13 months of debt service and constitute around 38.28% and 42.63% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet narrowed by $9.59 billion during the second half of December to $148.64 billion owing to the sizeable 14.54% ($8.97 billion) contraction in the value of other assets representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage to $52.70 billion, the 3.18% drop in the value of foreign assets to $24.09 billion and the 0.31% decrease in the value of the securities portfolio to $39.99 billion which altogether outweighed the 1.74% increase in the value of gold reserves to $17.32 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets rose to 16.21% by end of December 2020, compared to 15.72% by mid-December, with the share of gold reserves increasing to 11.66% from 10.76% two weeks earlier.