The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $172.48 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of November 2021 to $18.23 billion, down from $18.40 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 $13.20 billion by end of November. The value of gold reserves at BDL fell as well by 3.64% ($626.20 million) in the second half of November to $16.57 billion as gold prices corrected in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve Chairman’s statement calling for a more aggressive tapering of inflationary pressures by reducing asset purchases.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 27.17% ($6.80 billion) lower than the $25.03 billion reading reported as at end of November 2020. On the other hand, the value of gold reserves rose by 1.30% ($0.21 billion) when benchmarked to the $16.36 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 192 months of debt service and constitute around 30.32% and 34.43% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet fell by $0.53 billion during the second half of November to $162.93 billion on the back of the 3.64% contraction in the value of gold reserves to $16.57 billion, coupled with the 0.94% drop in the value of foreign assets to $18.23 billion and the 0.13% decrease in loans to the local financial sector to $13.75 billion, which altogether outweighed the 0.26% ($0.19 billion) increase in the value of other assets (representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage) to $72.91 billion and the 0.18% rise in the value of securities portfolio to $41.17 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets decreased to 11.19% as at end of November 2021, compared to 11.26% at mid-November, with the share of gold reserves also dropping to 10.17% from 10.52% two weeks earlier. The share of other assets, on the other hand, continued its upturn, reaching 44.75% of BDL’s total balance sheet.