The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $141.17 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of December 2021 to $18.09 billion, down from $18.23 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 $13.06 billion by mid-December. The value of gold reserves at BDL fell as well by 4.23% ($262.19 million) in the first half of December to $16.31 billion as gold prices fell to a one-month low on the back of a strengthening green back and easing worries over the omicron variant.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 27.29% ($6.79 billion) lower than the $24.88 billion reading reported as at mid-December 2020. In addition, the value of gold reserves fell by 4.23% ($0.72 billion) when benchmarked to the $17.03 billion figure recorded in the same period last year. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 182.57 months of debt service and constitute around 29.74% and 33.91% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet expanded by $0.94 billion during the first half of December to $163.87 billion on the back of the 1.79% ($1.30 billion) increase in the value of other assets (representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage) to $74.22 billion and the 0.18% rise in the value of securities portfolio to $41.25 billion which both outweighed the 1.58% contraction in the value of gold reserves to $16.31 billion, coupled with the 0.77% drop in the value of foreign assets to $18.09 billion and the 0.27% decrease in loans to the local financial sector to $13.71 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets decreased to 11.04% as at mid-December 2021, compared to 11.19% at end of November, with the share of gold reserves also dropping to 9.95% from 10.17% two weeks earlier. The share of other assets, on the other hand, continued its upturn, reaching 45.29% of BDL’s total balance sheet.