The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $264.54 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of January 2021 to $23.47 billion, down from $23.73 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 $18.44 billion by end of January. Similarly, gold reserves at BDL fell by 0.27% ($46.85 million) in the second half of January to $17.06 billion as gold prices dropped following the Fed’s decision to maintain its monetary policy unchanged, not promising any further stimulus packages in the process, boosting as such demand for the greenback as a safe-haven asset.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 35.99% ($13.19 billion) lower than the $36.66 billion reading reported at end of January 2020. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 17.10% ($2.49 billion) when benchmarked to the $14.57 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 203 months of debt service and constitute around 37.16% and 41.55% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $1.17 billion during the second half of January to $149.85 billion owing to the 2.64% ($1.41 billion) increase in the value of other assets representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage to $54.72 billion, the 0.18% rise in the value of securities portfolio to $40.15 billion and the 0.04% expansion in the value of loans to the local financial sector to $14.20 billion, which altogether outweighed the 1.11% drop in the value of foreign assets to $23.47 billion and the 0.27% decrease in the value of gold reserves to $17.06 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets fell to 15.66% by end of January 2021, compared to 15.96% by mid-January, with the share of gold reserves also dropping to 11.38% from 11.51% two weeks earlier.