Lebanese Forex Market
The Lebanese Pound (LP) continues to be steady within the official range of $/LP 1,514 – 1,514.5 against the dollar, with a mid-price of $/LP 1,514.25 this week.
The peg also continues to be supported by the Central Bank’s solid foreign assets, which stood at $36.97B by mid-Jan 2020.
In turn, the dollarization ratio of private sector deposits increased from 70.62% in December 2018 to 74.69% in November 2019.
Over the week, the Euro appreciated against the dollar-pegged LP, with the currency pair going from €/LBP 1,670.05 last week to €/LBP 1,672.23 this week. In turn, the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LP steadied at 117.63 points by the week ending Jan. 17, 2020.
International Forex Market
The Euro/USD currency pair went from last week’s €/USD 1.1078 to €/USD 1.1093 by Jan 17, 2020. In fact, the Euro strengthened marginally over the week. In details, EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said Thursday he was optimistic that the United States and the European Union could work together on trade even though no promises were received that the Trump administration would hold off on adding tariffs on about $10 billion worth of European goods. Moreover, the release of positive Chinese data with a yearly growth of 6.1% in 2019 also boosted the euro’s performance.
Commodities
International gold prices remained on an uptrend, rising by a weekly 0.02% to $1,552/ounce by Jan.17.