Home » LEBANON BRIEF » Issue January 2020
Cement deliveries dropped by an annual 29.67% by October 2019 to stand at 2.87M tons, compared to 4M tons by October 2018. In addition, the six-month moving average of the number of cement deliveries ... read more
According to Global Blue’s Jan to Dec 2019 “Globe Shopper Spending” report for Lebanon, total tourist spending declined yearly by 1.75% and the number of total refund transactions yearly dropped by 5.83%. ... read more
Bank Audi’s exclusive negotiations with First Abu Dhabi Bank are currently underway, as the former considers selling its Egyptian subsidiary, referred to as Bank Audi SAE. However, discussions are still at ... read more
According to Ernst & Young Middle East hotel benchmark survey, the occupancy rate in Lebanon’s 4- and 5-star hotels reached 65.20% by November 2019, compared to 64.60% during the same period last year. ... read more
Q4 2019 witnessed substantial developments in the country which hampered the tourism activity as reflected in our post earlier this week, with the number of airport passengers in 2019 marking its first ... read more
The Board of Directors (BoD) of Audi Bank called the shareholders to attend an extraordinary general assembly meeting scheduled on Thursday February 20th 2020 at 10.30am, at the bank’s headquarters in ... read more
The fourth quarter of 2019 was particularly challenging for Lebanon, both externally and internally, given that October ushered in an open-ended eruption of social rioting across the country which ... read more
The Central Bank’s (BDL’s) balance sheet started the year with a 0.43% year-to-date (y-t-d) uptick in its total assets which stood at $141.96B by the mid-Jan of 2020. In details, BDL foreign assets ... read more
The onset of the civic protest across Lebanon on October 17th and the ensuing financial and economic repercussions, namely the imposition of capital controls, contributed to raising inflation further up ... read more
Lebanon’s trade deficit narrowed in the first 11 months of the year to reach $14.81B, down by 7.79% compared to the same period in 2018. In details, the total value of imports lost an annual 2.81% to stand ... read more
BLOM Bank’s extraordinary General Assembly held on January 14th approved the terms of raising the bank’s Common Equity Tier I by $261.94M through cash contributions (in USD), which is equivalent to 10% of ... read more
Since October 17th, the eruption of a series of ongoing civic protests has hampered business activity across the country, coupled with ensuing bank closures and capital controls that were in turn imposed ... read more
The latest data released by the Lebanese Ministry of Finance (MoF) revealed that Lebanon’s gross public debt jumped by an annual 7% to amount to $89.5B in the first eleven months of 2019. In details, debt ... read more
The Board of Directors of BLC Bank call their shareholders to attend an extraordinary general assembly meeting scheduled on Thursday January 30th 2020 at 11.00am at the bank’s headquarters in Beirut. The ... read more
BDL recently released the consolidated balance sheet of Lebanese commercial banks which revealed that the banks’ Total assets added 4.09% year-to-date (YTD), to reach $259.7B by November 2019. In fact, ... read more
According to BDL’s latest monetary report, the cumulative balance of payments recorded a deficit of $3.51B by November 2019, compared to a deficit of $4B during the same period last year. In fact, BDL’s ... read more
Lebanon’s cash-basis fiscal deficit narrowed from $4.73B by October 2018 to $4B by October 2019. The smaller deficit comes as a result of the 7.63% yearly decline in government spending, which outweighed ... read more
The Central Bank’s (BDL’s) balance sheet ended the year with a 0.54% year-on-year (y-o-y) uptick in its total assets which stood at $141.36B by the end of 2019. In details, BDL foreign assets account ... read more
Lebanon’s trade deficit narrowed in the first 10 months of the year to reach $13.51B, down by 6.25% compared to the same period in 2018. In details, the total value of imports lost an annual 1.55% to stand ... read more
The BLOM Bond Index (BBI), a market value-weighted index tracking the performance of the Lebanese government Eurobonds market excluding coupon payments, witnessed a significant weekly drop by 12.07% to ... read more
BDL’s data on money supply revealed that Broad Money (M3) declined by LBP 285B ($189M) in the week ending January 16, 2020 to settle at LBP 200,411B ($133B), thereby registering an annual decrease of 5.32% ... read more
The beginning of 2020 carried a lot of negative news for Lebanon which further dragged down sovereign macroeconomic parameters. In parallel, stock market activity on the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) also ... read more
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 by the week ending Jan. ... read more
The BLOM Stock Index (BSI) slumped by 3.60% to close the week at 700.27 points on January 24, 2020. In turn, the Market capitalization on the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) fell from last week’s $7.10B to ... read more
BDL’s data on money supply revealed that Broad Money (M3) declined by LBP 1,138B ($755M) in the week ending January 9, 2020 to settle at LBP 200,696B ($133B), thereby registering an annual decrease of ... read more
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 by the week ending Jan. ... read more
The BLOM Bond Index (BBI), a market value-weighted index tracking the performance of the Lebanese government Eurobonds market (excluding coupon payments), slumped by 2.48% to settle at 47.16 points on ... read more
The BLOM Stock Index (BSI) slumped by 2.01% to close the week at 726.4 points on January 17th 2020. Meanwhile, the Market capitalization on the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) fell from last week’s $7.25B to ... read more
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 ... read more
The BLOM Bond Index (BBI), a market value-weighted index tracking the performance of the Lebanese government Eurobonds market excluding coupon payments, retreated by 1.85% to close the week on January 17 ... read more
BDL’s data on money supply revealed that Broad Money (M3) declined by LBP 653B ($433M) in the week ending January 02nd 2020 to settle at LBP 201,833B ($134B), thereby registering an annual decrease of ... read more
Discover today’s performance of BLOM indices, the closing prices of Lebanese stocks and Eurobonds, as well as the exchange rate of major currencies against the LBP. read more
The BLOM Stock Index (BSI) fell by 4.59% to close the week ending January 10th 2020 at 741.31 points, while the Market capitalization on the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) fell by a weekly 4.61% to $7.25B. ... read more
BDL’s data on money supply revealed that Broad Money (M3) declined by LBP 143B ($95M) in the week ending December 26th 2019 to stand at LBP 202,486B ($134B), thereby registering an annual decrease of 4.83% ... read more
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 ... read more
The BLOM Bond Index (BBI), a market value-weighted index tracking the performance of the Lebanese government Eurobonds market excluding coupon payments, retreated by 2.57% to close the week on January 10 ... read more
The BLOM Stock Index (BSI) gained 2.43% to end the week ending December 27th at 782.61 points.. Accordingly, The BSE’s market capitalization rose from $7.45B last week to $7.65B, this week. In fact, an ... read more
Lebanese Forex Market The Lebanese Pound (LP) continues to steady within the 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 ... read more
The BLOM Bond Index (BBI), a market value-weighted index tracking the performance of the Lebanese government Eurobonds market excluding coupon payments, added 0. 76% to close the week on January 02nd ... read more
Data by the Lebanese Ministry of Finance (MoF) showed Broad Money (M3) dropped by LBP 420B ($279M) in the week ending December 19 2019, to reach LBP 202,630B ($134B), thereby recording a yearly downtick of ... read more
The below-zero growth persisted during December 2019 and continued to be driven by November 2019’s sharpest deterioration in the private sector’s health. With a PMI standing at lows of 37 points in ... read more
It is generally known that the Lebanese economy extends to all five continents of the globe given that – by some estimates – more than 10 million Lebanese live outside the country. That is of course not ... read more
The Central Administration of Statistics (CAS) recently published the national accounts report for 2018, which revealed that Lebanon’s real GDP growth fell by 1.9%, marking the first significant drop since ... read more
The ongoing Lebanese economic crisis has brought more to the fore the importance of the current account deficit in perpetuating the crisis. This is because, in the absence of sizable capital inflows to ... read more