Lebanese Gross Public Debt Amounted to $68.72B or 141.16% of GDP in September

The Lebanese Gross Public Debt (GPD) reached $68.72B (LBP 103,597B) by end September, widening by 4.17% year-on-year (y-o-y) and 3.23% since the start of the year. Accordingly, Lebanon’s public debt reached 141.16% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP at end December 2014) compared to 136.75% in December 2014, noting that the Lebanese economy is expected to stagnate in 2015.

Debt in domestic currency, representing 61.91% of total gross debt, added 3.86% year-to-date (y-t-d) to reach the equivalent of $42.55B in September, while foreign currency debt augmented by 2.22% y-t-d to settle at $26.18B or 53.77% of GDP.

The Net Public Debt, which excludes public sector deposits at commercial banks and the Central Bank (BdL), widened by 5.41% y-t-d to $60.40B, or 124.08% of GDP. Worth noting that public sector deposits have actually fallen by 10.22% to $8.32B since the start of the year.

Commercial banks remained the largest subscribers of Treasury bills and bonds with a share of 47.5%, followed by 35.7% stake for BdL and 16.8% for the non-banking sector. Worth mentioning, since 2012, Commercial banks’ share of local currency debt has gone down by about 6 percentage points (p.p) from 53.45% by September 2012. In contrast, that of BDL and Non-Banking sector approximately gained 5 p.p and 1 p.p. from 30.7% and 15.85%, respectively, over the same period.

 

Share of Local Debt and Foreign Debt from Gross Public Debt in September ($B)

Lebanese Gross Public Debt Amounted to $68.72B or 141.16% of GDP in September

Source: Association of Banks in Lebanon

 

 

 

 

 

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