The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $261.26 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of December 2021 to $17.83 billion, down from $18.09 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 $12.80 billion by end of December. On the other hand, the value of gold reserves at BDL rose by 1.78% ($289.77 million) in the second half of December to $16.60 billion as gold prices increased amid a lower than expected increase in the US Purchasing Managers Index for the month of December.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 25.99% ($6.26 billion) lower than the $24.09 billion reading reported as at end of December 2020. In addition, the value of gold reserves fell by 4.20% ($0.73 billion) when benchmarked to the $17.32 billion figure recorded in the same period in 2020. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 183 months of debt service and constitute around 29.63% and 33.53% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet narrowed by $0.67 billion during the second half of December 2021 to $163.19 billion on the back of the 1.44% drop in the value of foreign assets to $17.83 billion and the 0.98% ($0.73 billion) decrease in the value of other assets (representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage) to $73.49 billion, which altogether outweighed the 1.78% increase in the value of gold reserves to $16.60 billion and the 0.06% rise in the value of the securities portfolio to $41.27 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets decreased to 10.92% as at end of December 2021, compared to 11.04% in mid-December, while the share of gold reserves increased to 10.17% from 9.95% two weeks earlier. The share of other assets reached 45.03% of BDL’s total balance sheet by end of December 2021, down from 45.29% by mid-December.