The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $124.75 million contraction in BDL’s foreign assets portfolio during the first half of September 2022 to $14.62 billion, down from $14.75 billion a fortnight earlier. When factoring out the portfolio of Lebanese Eurobonds held by the Central Bank amounting to $5.03 billion, the latter’s foreign currency reserves would settle at $9.59 billion by mid-September. Similarly, the value of gold reserves at BDL fell by 2.66% ($424.97 million) in the first half of September to $15.57 billion as gold prices dropped amid a stronger US Dollar.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 18.45% ($3.31 billion) lower than the $17.93 billion reading reported at mid-September 2021. Similarly, the value of gold reserves settled 6.28% ($1.04 billion) lower when benchmarked to the $16.61 billion figure recorded in the same period in 2021. It is worth noting that BDL’s total reserves (foreign currency and gold) cover some 163 months of debt service and constitute around 24.89% and 28.91% of Lebanon’s gross and net public debt on a respective basis.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet widened by $118.55 million during the first half of September 2022 to $169.40 billion on the back of the 1.72% ($1.43 billion) increase in the value of other assets (representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage) to $84.57 billion, outweighing the 1.38% decrease in the value of the securities portfolio to $41.25 billion, the 2.66% drop in the value of gold reserves to $15.57 billion, the 1.44% contraction in loans to the local financial sector to $13.08 billion and the 0.85% drop in the value of foreign assets to $14.62 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets decreased to 8.63% as at mid-September 2022, compared to 8.71% a fortnight earlier, with that of gold reserves concurrently dropping to 9.19%, down from 9.45% as at end of August. The share of other assets of BDL’s total balance sheet rose to 49.92% by mid-September 2022, up from 49.11% two weeks earlier.