Bahrain Mirror: The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) lost 321.7 million BD of foreign assets ($848.7 million) within the first nine months of 2018.

Foreign assets at the Central Bank of Bahrain declined by 36.4% during the first nine months of 2018, compared to the end of 2017.

Foreign assets in CBB registered a value of 561.4 million dinars ($1.48 billion) at the end of last September, compared to 883.1 million dinars ($2.33 billion dollars) at the beginning of 2018.

The net foreign assets at the central bank are an indicative of its ability to defend the local currency in the face of market pressures, especially with the current turmoil in world markets.

According to official statistics, the value of foreign assets at the central Bank of Bahrain declined by 23.5% in September 2018, compared to its value at the end of August.

Net foreign assets declined to 561.4 million dinars ($1.48 billion) by the end of last September, from 734.2 million dinars ($1.95 billion) in the previous August.

As for the net foreign assets of the Bahraini retail banks, they decreased in September to 1.029 billion in September ($2.714 billion), compared to about 1.067 billion ($2.849 billion dollars) in last August.

Arabic Version