Sada Economic Newspaper publishes, exclusively, a detailed report of the Central Bank and Banking and Monetary Supervision Department regarding the uses of foreign exchange

Total foreign exchange expenditures for all purposes during the first ten months of the current year 2022 amounted to about $19,788.0 million, compared to $19,860.5 million during the same period of 2021, a decrease of about 72.5 million USD. And within the framework of the Banking and Monetary Supervision Department’s follow-up to the accepted purchase requests for letter of credits and remittances, submitted by commercial banks through the system for following-up requests for coverage, and foreign exchange sales for personal purposes, in accordance with the decision of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Libya No. (1) of 2020 regarding amending the exchange rate of the Libyan dinar and Banking and Monetary Supervision Department Circular No. (9/2020).

Commercial banks’ use of foreign exchange during the first ten months of the current year 2022 constituted 65.9% of the total expenses, to record about $13,095.7million, compared to $15,365.9 million during the same period of 2021, which is a decrease of about $2,270.2 million.

The following is a comprehensive analysis of the commercial banks’ uses of foreign exchange during the period from 1/1 to 31/10 of 2022, through the system for following up on coverage requests, and foreign exchange sales for personal purposes at the Central Bank of Libya:

 First: Amounts of foreign exchange sold to commercial banks according to the bank for all purposes:

The total amounts of foreign exchange sold to commercial banks from 1/1 to 31/10 of 2022 through the following up system for coverage requests, and foreign exchange sales for personal purposes at the Central Bank of Libya amounted to about $13,095.7 million, compared to $15,365.9 million during the same period of 2021, which is a decrease of about $2,270.0 million.

The table below shows the amounts of foreign exchange sold to each bank, the data illustrates that Al-Aman Bank for Trade and Investment was the most bank using foreign exchange, with a value of about $2.2 billion, reaching approximately 16.5% of the total value of the amounts sold to banks during the first ten months of 2022, followed by the Jumhouria Bank with about $1.7 billion, then, in terms of relative importance, come the National Commercial Bank, Al Yaqeen, Al Nuran, the Libyan Islamic Bank, Al Wahda and the United Bank. The value of their foreign exchange use during the period, respectively, amounted to $1.6 billion, $1.4 billion, $1.0 million, $971.5 million, $891.4 million, and $840.3 million.

Geographical Distribution of Coverage Requests:

European countries are the most regions to which commercial banks transferred foreign exchange to cover letters of credit, or other transfer, as their relative importance during the period amounted to about 51.3% of the total foreign exchange requests, that is due to geographical proximity, which plays a major role in increasing the volume of trade exchanges between Libya and the European countries. Then, the Arab countries were in the second place with a relative importance of 21.4% of the total requests, while the Asian countries, the countries of North, Central and South America and other European countries accounted for 18.4%, and 7.8% of the total requests respectively. However, the data indicate weak trade exchanges between Libya, African countries, Australia, and New Zealand.

From the table of the values of banks’ requests to purchase foreign exchange by countries of origin, it can be concluded that goods and services of European origin, Turkey, China and Tunisia topped the list of the most important countries during the period from 1/1 to 31/10 – 2022, where the percentage of requests from these countries account for 50.5% of the total requests.

Purchase requests according to the top ten commodities:

First: Purchase requests according to the top ten commodities – Private Sector:

During the reporting period, the foreign exchange purchase request by private sector from commercial banks for various food ranked first out of the total purchase request, which is accounting for 17.3% of the total foreign exchange purchase request. While requests to cover importing the production requirements of basic commodities ranked second in terms of relative importance, constituting 14.3%, while cover requests for feed, production, and operation requirements, accounted for 14.3% and 12.4%, respectively.

Second: Purchase requests according to the top ten commodities – Public Sector

Foreign exchange purchase requests by commercial banks for the public sector for iron and steel plant operating requirements occupied the first rank of total purchase requests during the period, accounting for 30.0% of the total foreign exchange purchase requests, while requests to cover imports of basic commodity production supplies account for 12.4%, hence, they ranked the second in terms of relative importance. While requests for machinery and equipment accounted for 10.1% of the total requests.