The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $20.84 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of October 2021 to $18.77 billion, down from $18.79 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 $13.74 billion by mid-October. Contrastly, the value of gold reserves at BDL increased by 3.86% ($616.51 million) in the first half of October to $16.58 billion as gold prices rose amid a lower than expected increase in the US Producer Price Index.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 26.95% ($6.92 billion) lower than the $25.70 billion reading reported in mid-October 2020. Moreover, the value of gold reserves dropped by 4.99% ($0.87 billion) when benchmarked to the $17.45 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 181 months of debt service and constitute around 31.02% and 35.11% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet expanded by $1.79 billion during the first half of October to $161.13 billion on the back of the 1.69% ($1.17 billion) rise in the value of other assets (representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage) to $70.76 billion coupled with the 3.86% increase in the value of gold reserves to $16.58 billion and the 0.19% expansion in the value of securities portfolio to $40.95 billion, which altogether outweighed the 0.42% contraction in loans to the local financial sector to $13.80 billion and the 0.11% drop in the value of foreign reserves to $18.77 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets decreased to 11.65% by mid October 2021, compared to 11.79% by end of September, while the share of gold reserves rose to 10.29% from 10.02% two weeks earlier. The share of other assets, on the other hand, continued its upturn, reaching 43.91% of BDL’s total balance sheet.