According to the Central Bank of Lebanon, Lebanon’s Balance of Payments (BoP) witnessed a deficit increase from $1.32B by July 2015 to $1.42B by July 2016. Net Foreign Assets (NFA) of BDL increased $128M, while those of commercial banks decreased by $1.55B by July 2016, compared to a rise of $1.87B in BDL’s NFA and a drop of $3.18B by July 2015 in commercial banks’ NFA. The rising BoP deficit can be partially explained by the 6.97% growth in the trade deficit that reached $8.54B by July 2016.
As for the month of July alone, the BoP recorded a $352M surplus compared to a narrower surplus of $2.4M in July 2015.
Balance of Payments (BoP) by July (in Millions $)
Source: BDL