According to the balance sheet of Banque du Liban (BDL), the central bank’s total assets added 16.25% compared to last year, to reach $189.70B by end of December 2022. The increase was mainly due to the 51.93% year-on-year (YOY) rise in other assets, grasping 49.25% of BDL’s total assets and reaching $93.43B by end of December 2022. Furthermore, the gold account, representing 8.78% of BDL’s total assets, increased by 0.33% yearly to reach $16.65B by end of December 2022.
BDL’s foreign assets, consisting of 8% of total assets dropped by 14.83% YOY and stood at $15.18B by end of December 2022, noting that BDL holds in its foreign assets $5B in Lebanese Eurobonds. On a different note, total volume of dollars injected into the market through Sayrafa platform reached $922M in the month of December, however, the foreign assets of BDL decreased by 3.16M during the same period. Therefore, the Central Bank has been absorbing from the market the total of $918.84M during this period. In more details, Sayrafa traded volume reached $11.72B since year start, whereas BDL’s foreign assets seem to have decreased at a slower pace as they declined by $2.64B only.
On the liabilities front, financial sector deposits, representing 55.36% of BDL’s total liabilities, decreased by 2.71% and reached $105.02B by end of December 2022 compared to last year, of which more than two thirds are denominated in dollars.
Lastly, currency in Circulation outside of BDL, consisting of 28.03% of BDL’s total liabilities, added 75.19% annually to reach $53.18B by end of December 2022. It is interesting to note that it is the largest increase of all items.
BDL Total, Foreign assets and Currency in Circulation by End of December ($B):
Source: BDL, Blominvest