Lebanese Forex Market
The Lebanese Pound traded within the range of $/LP 1,514-1,514.5 against the dollar with a mid-price of $/LP 1,514.25 by the week ending June 14th, at the same range as last week.
The peg continues to be supported by the Central Bank’s solid foreign assets, which reached $45.3 billion in May 2018.
The dollarization ratio of private sector deposits grew from 65.84% in December 2017 to 68.32% in April 2018.
Over the past week, the Euro continued to strengthen against the dollar-pegged LP going from €/LBP 1,771.08 to €/LBP 1,782.47 this week.
As for the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LBP, it recorded a marginal drop of 0.02% to end the week at 113.46 points.
International Forex Market
The euro climbed during the week on rising expectations the European Central Bank will signal an end date for its vast stimulus programme at its policy meeting today. As a result, the euro rose against the dollar as reflected in the 0.64% increase in the euro-dollar rate to 1.1824 this week, compared to 1.1748, last week.
Commodities
Gold prices rose this week from $1,299.40 to $1,311.80 by the week ending June 14.