Lebanese Gold

Lebanon has always been a frightening place to live in due to the bomb attacks and other problems that might occur there. But has anyone had the time to stop and think that Lebanon is on the 15th place when it comes to global gold?

The gold reserve from Lebanon is the largest reserve in the Middle East and North Africa. The gold was estimated at 9.2 billion dollars at the end of 2009. The World Gold Council ranked it on the 15th globally. Lebanon is holds 1.1 percent of the world's gold reserve (excluding the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank). This gold was brought to Lebanon mostly in the 60s and in the 70s.

The total amount of gold in Lebanon is equivalent to 28.1% of the GDP, putting Lebanon on the first place among 105 countries. The central Bank in Lebanon uses the gold as a means of safety against unforeseeable financial crisis and in order to support the Lebanese pound in the face of depreciation.

The Lebanese Parliament has the power to liquidate the gold reserve or to use it to cover other soft loans on the local and international markets. All experts agree that liquidating the gold reserve would be a mistake and they give assurances that the government and the Central Bank prefer keeping the gold right there were it is.

Half of the gold reserves can be found in Fort Knox and the other half is in the Central Bank. The governor of the Central Bank, Raid Salameh, said that the Central Bank foreign currency reserves have reached a peak of 28.6 billion dollars in 2009. He concluded that 2009 was a good year and that, thanks to the transfers that rose by 10%, the surplus was of 7.8 billion dollars.

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