Statistics issued by the Banque du Liban revealed a remarkable deficit in the balance of payments amounting to $ 10 billion during the first ten months of the current year 2020, amid a significant decline in inflows this year.
Statistics of the Banque du Liban showed that customers' deposits in banks decreased by 17.9 billion dollars since the beginning of the year 2020, with a decrease in local currency deposits of 10.2 billion dollars, a contraction of $ 7.7 billion in foreign currency deposits. Where a large part of the shrinking deposits is related to the repayment of bank loans.
According to Banque du Liban's statistics, the bank's loan portfolio shrank by $ 12.1 billion between December 2019 and October 2020, this is a result of a contraction of $ 11.3 billion in foreign currency loans, while Lebanese pound loans decreased by $ 800 million. As such, loan dollarization contracted from 68.7% to 60.7%, reaching its lowest level in 34 years.
In parallel, banks recorded an additional decrease in primary foreign currency liquidity in foreign banks this year, dropping by $ 2.4 billion between December 2019 and October 2020, which is equivalent to 1.7% of foreign currency clients' deposits.
Source (Economic Newsletter site, Edited)
