Lebanon’s Balance of Payments (BoP) registered a $233.9M surplus during the first 4 months of the year, compared to a deficit of $899.1B by April 2015. As such, BDL’s Net Foreign Assets (NFA) recorded a drop of $1.44B by April while commercial banks’ NFAs registered a rise of $1.67B.
In April alone, the BoP recorded a deficit of $320.9M in April 2017. In details, BDL’s NFAs witnessed a drop of $883.5M and that of commercial banks rose by $562.6M, from the prior month. This was due to an increase in the demand for dollars as well as the banks reconstituting their foreign assets after the BDL swap operation. In fact, dollarization on deposits rose from 66.13% in March 2017 to 66.38% in April 2017.
Balance of Payments (BoP) by April (in Millions $)
Source: BDL