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Gold retreats as equities, dollar recover

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Gold edged lower today, reversing course from a 3% surge in the previous session following a surprise rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve as equities and the dollar regained some ground.

Spot gold slipped 0.2% to $1,636.13 per ounce as of 08:38 GMT, having risen as much as 0.7% earlier in the session and registered its biggest one-day percentage gain since 2016 on Tuesday, while U.S. gold futures slipped 0.4% to $1,637.20 per ounce.

“In the very short term, gold has perhaps reached its upside limit as this rate cut is priced in,” CMC Markets analyst Margaret Yang Yan said.

A broad uptick in risk-on sentiment and a rebound in the dollar index are weighing on gold, she added.

The U.S. stock futures rose over 1% and European shares inched up, recovering from weakness in global equities earlier as the emergency cut from the Fed seemed to stoke rather than soothe fears over the virus’ widening economic fallout.

Elsewhere, palladium fell 2.1% to $2,449.03 per ounce, while platinum was up 0.1% at $875.99.

Silver also gained 0.1% to $17.19 an ounce.

Libya will decrease Chinese imports

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As a result of coronavirus outbreak, the export subsidy advisor at the Ministry of Economy, Khaled Moussa, claimed that Chinese imports to Libya will be reduced.

The recent statistics published by the Ministry of Economy indicated that Chines imports to Libya exceeded one billion and 300 million dollars in 2018, and they represent 10.6% of Libya’s total imports.

Sayala, Shakshak, Al-Kabir, Al-Mishri and Al-Juwaili form a crisis committee

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During a meeting he held today at the Central Bank of Libya, Chairman of Presidential Council Faiez Al Serraj discussed the items of 2020 financial arrangements under the current circumstances of the forced blockade of oil fields and ports.

During the meeting, participants agreed to form a crisis committee that will deal with the current crisis and guarantee the flow of public services to Libyan citizens.

The meeting was held in the presence of the spokesman for the House of Representatives (HoR) in Tripoli Hamouda Sayala, the President of the High Council of State Khaled Al-Mishri, the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya Sadiq Al-Kabir , Tripoli-based Audit Bureau chief Khaled Shakshak, as well as the commander of the operations room, Major General Osama Al-Juwaili.

The attendees also agreed that the Committee should consist of mentioned Messrs, in addition to Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha.

North Africa Bank receives financial liquidity

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In a statement to Tabadul, a source confirmed to that North Africa Bank received financial liquidity at a value of 4 million dinars from the southern administration of Sabha, transferred from the Central Bank of Libya.

The source confirmed that they will start distributing them through the delegates with a ceiling rate of 750 dinars for each account.

Oil extends gains on expectations for coordinated effort to offset coronavirus impact

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 Today, oil prices extended gains on expectations that central banks will provide financial stimulus to offset the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Brent crude LCOc1 rose 79 cents per barrel, or 1.5%, to $52.69 per barrel by 13:05 GMT.

On the other side, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) CLc1 was up 85 cents, or 1.8%, at $47.60 a barrel.

It should be pointed out that brent and WTI have rebounded somewhat over the past two days after sliding more than 20% from their January peak on signs the spread of the coronavirus had dented fuel demand.

With lingering worries over oil demand amid the virus outbreak, several key members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are mulling a bigger oil output cut of possibly 1 million barrels per day (bpd). The previous proposal was for an additional reduction of 600,000 bpd.

OPEC and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, are expected to announce deeper output cuts at their meeting on March 5-6 in Vienna. The group had agreed to cut output by 1.7 million bpd in a deal that runs to the end of March.

The dollar jumps with regard to the Libyan Dinar

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Today, the US dollar exchange rate rose, in the parallel market, with regard to the Libyan dinar.

Hence, the dollar increased from 4.41 LYD to 4.48 LYD, while the British pound remained at 5.64 LYD.

As far as the euro is concerned, it settled at 4.85 LYD, while the Tunisian dinar maintained the level of 1.60 LYD, and the Turkish was stable at 0.72 LYD.

ICC rules in favor of Libya’s Sirte Oil Company

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The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ruled in favour of Libya’s Sirte Oil Company, rejecting a lawsuit filed by Punj Lloyd against the company in 2018 to recover what it called dues, estimated at about 205 million dollars.

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered Punj Lloyd to pay 5.195 million dollars to Sirte Oil Company in compensation, and rejected Punj Lloyd’s claims that the Libyan company violated the terms of a joint agreement signed in 2006.

Boumtari: savings of public expenditures exceeded 1 billion dinars in 2019

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During today’s a press conference, the Finance Minister Faraj Boumtari clarified that the proposals of rationalizing expenditure and reducing the salaries of the Presidential Council, ministers and agents by 30% tend to reduce the gap between minimum and maximum salaries, stressing that ,for the first time in 7 months, the ministry had a salary system through which they matched the employees’ expenditure operations with the general quarters, and the cost-savings of the public expenditures reached one billion dinars in 2019.

The minister considered that economic reforms were suspended due to monetary policy shortcomings confirming that they noticed a number of negative indicators related to growth. In fact, all positive indicators recorded in 2018 have begun to shrink.

Boumtari said that, after the oil exportation was blocked, he presented a proposal to reduce the suggested financial arrangements for the level of expenditures to 40 billion dinars in 2020. However, they faced consultation and coordination issues.

At the press conference today, Boumtari emphasized that the current problem is related to the previous appointments of 250,000 between the years 2013-2014 and 2015, and confirmed that 90% of these appointments lack one of the terms of staffing or financial coverage.

The Minister also stressed that there should have been a clear monetary policy that would have resolved the private sector problem and created job opportunities.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Finance recommends fuel subsidies’ removal

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In a press conference held today in Tripoli, the Finance Minister Faraj Boumtari said that appointments made between 2013, 2014 and 2015 exceed 250 thousand, stressing that the government should play its role in solving employment issues.

Boumtari also stressed that the Ministry of Finance is unable to increase the money transferred from the Central Bank of Libya, adding that the current problem is related to the monetary policy along with the Central Bank’s opposition to inflation.

The minister stressed that his ministry paid the salaries and was waiting for a response from the Central Bank of Libya, that blocked financial arrangements and had not paid January and February salaries yet.

The Minister of Finance announced that they had prepared some proposals in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy, including the removal of fuel subsidies and the reduction of corruption and smuggling.

There are several alternatives for partial or monetary removal of subsidies that guarantee that the citizen will not be harmed and that the smuggling will be stopped, Boumtari added.

He also stressed that the Central Bank was supposed to activate the electronic payments system.