According to the balance sheet of Banque du Liban (BDL), the central bank’s total assets fell by 39.15% compared to last year, to reach $103.09B by end of July 2023. The fall was mainly due to the 90.52% year-on-year (YOY) drop in other assets, grasping 6.48% of BDL’s total assets and reaching $6.67B by end of July 2023. Furthermore, the gold account, representing 17.50% of BDL’s total assets, increased by 10.89% yearly to reach $18.03B by end of July 2023.
BDL’s foreign assets, consisting of 13.37% of total assets dropped by 9.11% YOY and stood at $13.78B by end of July 2023, noting that BDL holds in its foreign assets $5B in Lebanese Eurobonds. In parallel, interestingly, other liabilities plunged by 72.61% year over year and 54.82 on a monthly basis to stand at $1.10B by the end of July 2023. Interesting to mention that the capital account of BDL has remarkably increased by 25.73% on a monthly basis to stand at $899.11M by the end of July noting that it almost remained constant during the last two years except for February 2023 at the time of official rate’s modification.
Meanwhile, total volume of dollars on Sayrafa platform reached around $810M in the second two weeks of July 2023; crucially however, BDL’s foreign assets decreased by $608.38M during the same period which raises questions about the situation since foreign reserves were expected to increase due to tourism and expats’ cash inflows during summer season.
On the liabilities front, financial sector deposits, representing 86.57% of BDL’s total liabilities, decreased by 20.03% and reached $9.24B by end of July 2023 compared to last year, of which more than 90% are denominated in dollars. Lastly, currency in Circulation outside of BDL, consisting of 4.01% of BDL’s total liabilities, plunged by 85.04% annually to reach $4.13B by end of July 2023 amid adopting the 15,000 LBP/USD official rate by BDL.
BDL Total, Foreign assets and Currency in Circulation by end of July 2023 ($B):
Source: BDL, Blominvest
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