A new issuance of eurobonds by the Lebanese government is anticipated. The management includes JP Morgan and Crédit Suisse First Boston, and the amount is expected to be $300 million, with the maturity date being 2004.
The deficit of public finance has risen to 55 percent of spending in October, against 48.1 percent in September 2000 and 58 percent in October 1999. The accumulated deficit over the first ten months of this year is 51.2 percent against 44.8 percent over the same period of in 1999.
The commercial balance registered an accumulated deficit of $4,566 million for the first ten months of the year, scoring a cut of 0.86 percent over the same period in 1999. The imports are stable (+0.2 percent) but the exports increased by 9.2 percent.
The custom’s receipts had risen to $1.08 billion over the first ten months of this year noting a decrease of 7.4 percent compared to the same period last year. These receipts represented 44 percent of the government revenues in 1999.
Compensation: 8 million checks for the first nine months of the year (-0.8 percent compared to the same period last year), amounting to LBP 30,171 billion (+1.2 percent. 291,468 returned checks (-0.04 percent) for LBP 1,053 billion (-12 percent).
BDL’s gross reserves in foreign currencies have amounted to $5,946 million as of the 15th of November, scoring a decrease of $86 million over 15 days.
The Treasury bond portfolio increased up to LBP 24,064 billion as of end of October 2000 (+5.9 percent over a year). — ( Banque Libano-Française Sal )
