The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $101.67 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of October 2021 to $18.67 billion, down from $18.77 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 $13.64 billion by end of October. Similarly, the value of gold reserves at BDL dropped by 0.54% ($46.57 million) in the second half of October to $16.53 billion as gold prices dropped, dented by an increase in bond yields.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 26.61% ($6.77 billion) lower than the $25.44 billion reading reported as at end of October 2020. Moreover, the value of gold reserves dropped by 4.35% ($0.75 billion) when benchmarked to the $17.29 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 186 months of debt service and constitute around 30.87% and 34.94% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet expanded by $0.63 billion during the second half of October to $161.76 billion on the back of the 0.99% ($0.70 billion) rise in the value of other assets (representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage) to $71.46 billion coupled with the 0.20% expansion in the value of securities portfolio to $41.03 billion, which both outweighed the 0.28% decrease in the value of gold reserves to $16.53 billion and the 0.54% drop in the value of foreign assets to $18.67 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets decreased to 11.54% by end of October 2021, compared to 11.65% in mid-October, with the share of gold reserves dropping to 10.22% from 10.29% two weeks earlier. The share of other assets, on the other hand, continued its upturn, reaching 44.18% of BDL’s total balance sheet.