The Audit Bureau report, issued on Monday, revealed that Libya had spent more than a quarter of its 2014 foreign-exchange reserves in an attempt to compensate for the drop of the vital oil revenue. 

The report outlined that the foreign-exchange reserves in the Central Bank of Libya has amounted to 76.6 billion dollars at the end of 2014 compared to 105.9 billion dollars in 2013.
It added that the value of the CBL’s investments in foreign bonds shrank 25% last year reaching 50.5 billion dollars, while deposits by foreign currencies decreased about 26% reaching 25.3 billion dollars.

Although Libya often experiences budget surplus, the report showed that oil revenue decline caused a 22.3 billion dollars deficit in 2014 budget, warning about the sharp drop in the foreign-exchange reserves, and about a close collapse in the CBL and Libya’s economy in two years if the current spending policy continues.

The Audit Bureau concluded by saying that the report’s data clearly shows a decline in the foreign-exchange reserves that reached only 29.2 billion dollars as a lowest level in years, hinting that Libya, which is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), may be close enough to experience a financial collapse.

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