The central bank’s remaining foreign assets were valued at $15 billion at the end of July. (Credit: Omar Tamo/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Banque du Liban’s foreign assets, which mainly represent reserves used to finance essential imports, fell by nearly half a billion dollars in July, the bank’s latest interim balance sheet shows.
Here’s what we know:
• BDL’s latest balance sheet shows a $495 million drop in its foreign assets in July. The central bank’s remaining foreign assets were valued at $15 billion at the end of July, excluding $5.03 billion in eurobonds — loans to the government in foreign currency — on which Lebanon has defaulted. The bank’s foreign assets have dropped by $4 billion since the start of the year.
• BDL’s mysterious “other assets” entry, which analysts say hides the bank’s losses, grew by LL2.78 trillion in July. This entry has reached LL83.17 trillion, compared to LL61.36 trillion at the beginning of the year and LL37.63 trillion at the start of 2020.
• The bank’s biweekly financial statement also shows a drop in the amount of lira banknotes in circulation, with the quantity decreasing by LL242 billion in the second half of July. This decrease reflects BDL’s latest efforts to shrink the quantity of banknotes outside its vaults. However, the bank had already increased the total sum of lira in circulation by LL463.9 billion during the first half of July. The value of lira banknote in circulation now stands at LL40.56 trillion.
• BDL’s holdings of some 286.6 tons of gold reserves are valued at $16.7 billion as of the end of July, the balance sheet states. Despite not being counted since 1996, according to MPs, and external auditors being unable to access about 60 percent of the gold held in the bank while auditing the bank’s 2018 annual statements — due, they said, to “a complex accessibility policy” — BDL announced in mid-July that the gold is “fine” and that it has been left untouched. In 1986, MPs prohibited the sale of the gold held at BDL.