BDL confirms gold reserves align with official statements

On Thursday, the Banque du Liban (BDL) announced the summary of the international audit report on its gold reserves, revealing that the documented quantities match the official financial statements.

According to a statement released by the BDL's media office, the acting BDL Governor, Wassim Mansouri, engaged with ALS Inspection UK Ltd, a global auditing firm appointed by KPMG in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

This article was originally published in, translated from the Lebanese newspaper Nidaa Al-Watan.

Consequently, BDL obtained approval to publish a summary of the audit report on its gold reserves, reaffirming the congruence of gold reserves in the Central Bank's vaults with the quantities recorded in the financial data.

The BDL defined ALS Inspection UK Ltd as a branch of the Australian company ALS Limited, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, headquartered in Britain. The company provides accurate and independent global analysis and testing services for minerals, metals, ores, precious metals, iron alloys, and solid fuels.

In 2022, KPMG, in partnership with the IMF, engaged ALS Inspection UK Ltd to verify the presence and quality of gold assets in Lebanon's Central Bank vaults. David Pownall, Global Director of Precious Metals at ALS Inspection UK Ltd, stated, "Our objective was to independently inspect Lebanon's significant gold reserves of alloys and coins, verify and digitally record them. We aimed to create a transparent digital catalog of the gold reserves that can be easily and efficiently audited in the coming years."

Translated into Arabic, the report revealed that each gold bar was individually weighed and non-destructively analyzed using analytical equipment. ALS employees transported the bars to a dedicated area within the designated site for storing BDL's gold reserves. The exact process was applied to the large stock of gold coins held by BDL.

After examining over 13,000 bars and 600,000 gold coins, ALS Inspection UK Ltd confirmed that the calculated gold reserves, based on troy ounces, align with BDL regulations and official statements regarding gold assets.