The bulk of the Lebanese public debt, according to the statistics of the Association of Banks had a remarkable increase of about 6.5 billion dollars, to reach about 92 billion dollars at the end of last year, an increase of 7.6 percent. While it is expected to record a contraction of GDP by at least 5 percent.
In the context, a decrease in the value of the external assets of the Central Bank of Lebanon until the middle of this month was observed, by 7.74%, equivalent to 3 billion dollars, compared to the level it was in the same period last year. Thus, the value of the reserve amounted to $ 36.2 billion, including $ 5.7 billion in government bonds, whose market value is currently less than 40 percent of their base value.
Total reserves, that are external assets and gold reserves currently estimated to have a market value of about $ 15 billion, constitute about 49.5 percent of the total public debt. This covers 106 months of debt service.
Source (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Edited)
