Despite the improvement in the tourism sector, Lebanon’s Balance of Payments registered a deficit of $357.6M during the first 5 months of the year compared to a deficit of $1.76B by May 2016. By May 2017, BDL’s Net Foreign Assets (NFA) decreased by $2.11B while commercial banks’ NFAs increased by $1.75B.
In May alone, the BoP posted a deficit of $591.5M. More specifically, BDL’s NFAs decreased by $675.7M and commercial banks’ NFAs increased by $84.2M whereas during the same period in 2016 BDL’s NFAs declined by $455.6M and commercial banks’ also experienced a drop of $406M.
Balance of Payments (BoP) by May (in Millions $)
Source: BDL