The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $322.88 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of February 2021 to $23.14 billion, down from $23.47 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 $18.11 billion by mid-February. Similarly, gold reserves at BDL fell by 1.72% ($293.27 million) in the first half of February to $16.77 billion as gold prices dropped in part owing to weaker crude oil prices.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 36.04% ($13.04 billion) lower than the $36.18 billion reading reported at mid-February 2020. Conversely, the value of gold reserves soared by 15.50% ($2.25 billion) when benchmarked to the $14.52 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 200 months of debt service and constitute around 36.52% and 40.83% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $0.68 billion during the first half of February to $150.53 billion owing to the 1.65% ($0.90 billion) increase in the value of other assets representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage to $55.62 billion and the 1.03% rise in the value of securities portfolio to $40.56 billion, which altogether outweighed the 1.38% drop in the value of foreign assets to $23.14 billion, the 1.72% decrease in the value of gold reserves to $16.77 billion and the 0.15% decline in the value of loans to the local financial sector to $14.18 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets fell to 15.38% by mid-February 2021, compared to 15.66% by end of January, with the share of gold reserves also dropping to 11.14% from 11.38% two weeks earlier.