According to Salameh the total value of Lebanon's gold reserves is $17.5 billion. (Credit: AFP)
BEIRUT — Banque du Liban governor Riad Salameh in a letter to opposition MP Melhem Khalaf on June 20 revealed that the total gold held by the central bank is 9.2 million ounces of gold of which around 40 percent are in the United States. According to Salameh the total value of gold reserves is $17.5 billion.
Here’s what we know:
• According to Salameh’s letter, 3.7 million ounces of BDL’s gold reserves would be stored at Fort Knox, a military camp built in 1918 in Kentucky and in which the American government has stored its gold since 1937 while 5.5 million are deposited at BDL.
• Lebanon’s economic crisis since Oct. 2019 has caused much interest in the subject of gold reserves, since this could potentially be important for Lebanon’s economic recovery plan. BDL's currency reserves amount to 11.8 billion dollars, if we exclude gold and eurobonds (debt securities in foreign currencies), according to Salameh’s comments to Reuters on June 21. According to BDL’s balance sheet, the central bank’s total assets reached $162.98 billion by the end of Feb. 2022.
• In the letter addressed to Khalaf, Salameh also specified that “BDL has not carried out any operation, of any nature or form whatsoever, on the gold assets.”
• Law No. 42 approved by Parliament in 1986 prohibits in its single article anyone from disposing, directly or indirectly, of these gold reserves placed at the BDL without the authorization of Parliament.