The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys a somewhat flat (-$2.90 million bi-weekly change) BDL’s foreign assets portfolio at $15.28 billion during the first half of November 2022. 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 $10.25 billion as at mid-November. Conversely, the value of gold reserves at BDL rose by 8.14% ($1,232.29 million) in the first half of November to $16.37 billion as gold prices increased amid an unexpected slowdown in inflation pressure according to the US October Consumer Price Index data.

On an annual basis, BDL’s foreign assets came in 17.00% ($3.13 billion) lower than the $18.40 billion reading reported at mid-November 2021. Similarly, the value of gold reserves settled 4.78% ($0.82 billion) lower when benchmarked to the $17.20 billion figure recorded in the same period in 2021.

In a related note, BDL’s balance sheet narrowed by 0.84% ($1.58 billion) on a biweekly basis to $186.72 billion mainly on the back of the $2.41 billion (2.31%) decrease in the value of other assets (representing capitalized open market operations and seigniorage) to $102.02 billion, the 0.74% drop in the value of the securities portfolio to $40.56 billion and the 0.70% contraction in loans to the local financial sector to $12.19 billion, altogether outweighing the 8.14% increase in the value of gold reserves to $16.37 billion.

The share of BDL’s foreign assets of the latter’s total assets increased to 8.18% as at mid-November 2022, compared to 8.11% a fortnight earlier, with that of gold reserves concurrently rising to 8.77%, up from 8.04% two weeks earlier. On the other hand, the share of other assets fell to 54.64% of BDL’s total balance sheet down from 55.46% two weeks earlier.