The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $191.00 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the first half of May 2022 to $16.06 billion, down from $16.25 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 $11.03 billion by mid-May. Similarly, the value of gold reserves at BDL shed 4.79% ($844.95 million) in the first half of May to $16.81 billion as gold prices fell due to the strengthening of the USD.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 25.07% ($5.37 billion) lower than the $21.44 billion reading reported as at mid-May 2021. Similarly, the value of gold reserves came in 0.60% ($0.10 billion) lower when benchmarked to the $16.91 billion figure recorded in the same period in 2021. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 179 months of debt service and constitute around 27.84% and 32.00% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $0.78 billion during the first half of May 2022 to $167.41 billion on the back of the 2.13% ($1.64 billion) rise in the value of other assets (representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage) to $78.73 billion, coupled with the 0.74% increase in loans to the local financial sector to $13.42 billion and a 0.19% appreciation in the value of the securities portfolio to $42.09 billion, which altogether outweighed the 4.79% drop in the value of gold reserves to $16.81 billion and the 1.18% contraction in the value of foreign assets to $16.06 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets decreased to 9.59% as at mid-May 2022, compared to 9.75% a fortnight earlier, with the share of gold reserves contracting to 10.04% from 10.59% two weeks earlier. The share of other assets reached 47.03% of BDL’s total balance sheet by mid-May 2022, up from 46.27% as at end of April.