According to BDL’s latest monetary report, the BOP recorded a cumulative deficit of $5.53B by July 2020, compared to a deficit of $5.32B by July last year. Accordingly, Net foreign Assets (NFAs) of BDL fell by $7.21B. Meanwhile the NFAs of commercial banks added $1.68B over the same period.
On a monthly basis, the BOP deficit stood at $3.05B, as NFAs of BDL and that of Commercial banks fell respectively by $2.78B and by $266.5M.
For a meaningful analysis, we scrutinize the NFAs of commercial banks which are in fact the difference between banks’ Foreign Assets (FA) and Foreign Liabilities (FL). For the month of July, the decline in FLs can be largely attributed to the reduction in the Non-resident customer deposits and Non-resident Financial sector liabilities by $352M and $88.94M. Meanwhile, the FAs decreased owing to the respective declines of $182.13M and $482.63M in the Loans to Non-resident customers and other foreign assets
Meanwhile, the decline in BDL’s NFAs on a monthly basis is mostly attributed to the continued support of essential goods including basic food, medicines and fuel. In details, BDL foreign assets dropped monthly by $2.27B in July 2020.
Balance of Payments (BoP) by July (in $M)
