The Finance and Budget Committee has recently prepared a draft capital control law with the aim of enacting temporary and exceptional restrictions on withdrawals and transfers.
The number of passengers travelling via the Beirut International Airport (BIA) contracted markedly to 549,576 during the first quarter of 2021, down from 1,165,094 passengers during the same period in 2020.
The Lebanese financial sector’s net foreign assets fell by $95.9 million in March 2021 in comparison with contractions of $340.6 million in February and $410.6 million in January.
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Lebanese Central Bank’s balance sheet conveys some $271.80 million contraction in its foreign assets portfolio during the second half of April 2021 to $21.64 billion, down from $21.91 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 $16.61 billion by end of April. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">According to ABL statistics, the value of cleared checks fell by 37.80% on an annual basis to reach LBP 15,076 billion (distributed over 911,875 checks) in the first quarter of 2021, in comparison with LBP 24,239 billion (allocated over 1,855,380 checks) during that same period last year. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Lebanon’s fiscal deficit (Budgetary & Treasury) contracted by 30.36% y-o-y in the first ten months of 2020 to around $2.80 billion, compared to $4.02 billion a year earlier.</p> <p> </p>
