Gold pushes up Lebanon’s foreign assets by $10bn

• Impact of surging gold price
• Total foreign assets up to $41.7bn
• Non-gold assets also climb

Foreign assets held by Lebanon’s central bank swelled by nearly $10 billion in one year on the back of surging gold prices, increased capital flows and government deposits.

Total foreign assets increased from $31.5 billion at the end of June 2024, to $41.7 billion at the end of June 2025, the bank said last week in its monthly economic and monetary bulletin. 

Non-gold assets grew from $9.9 billion to $11.3 billion as a result of capital inflows and government deposits, the central bank said.

The reserves figure is closely watched because a higher number signals a way to unfreeze long-frozen deposits held in commercial banks by hard-pressed Lebanese citizens.

In 2019 the central bank (Banque du Liban) effectively closed dollar bank accounts, leaving depositors unable to retrieve their cash and triggering the worst financial crisis in Lebanon’s modern history. 

In October the Washington-based Institute of International Finance proposed the sale of part of the gold reserves but the government is not authorised to act without parliamentary approval. Elections are due in May.

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At the end of December the Lebanese cabinet endorsed a plan known as the “gap law” proposed by prime minister Nawaf Salam to repay billions in locked funds.

Salam did not say how much would be paid in the first four years to bank clients with deposits below $100,000 apart from saying that they account for more than 80 percent of the total depositors.

Nearly 782,000 depositors possessing below $100,000 would be paid around $14.8 billion in the first four years under the plan which must be passed by parliament, according to Al-Akhbar newspaper, citing government sources.