The Central Bank’s second-quarter bulletin recorded LYD 45.38 billion in service payments and LYD 2.28 billion in receipts in the first half of 2025. The resulting LYD 43.10 billion deficit nearly matched full-year deficits in 2023 and 2024, but the public table does not identify the services driving it.

LYD 43.10bn

First-half 2025 services deficit: LYD 45.38bn paid, LYD 2.28bn received

What sits inside the LYD 45 billion claim?

The Central Bank’s second-quarter bulletin recorded LYD 45.38 billion in service payments and LYD 2.28 billion in service receipts for the first half of 2025: a LYD 43.10 billion services deficit. The amounts are balance-of-payments dinar entries, not a conversion from a letters-of-credit table.

In 2023, service payments were LYD 48.26 billion and receipts LYD 3.08 billion, producing a LYD 45.18 billion deficit. The reported 2024 deficit was LYD 42.68 billion. Doubling the first-half 2025 deficit produces LYD 86.2 billion, but that is a mechanical scenario—not a forecast adjusted for seasonality, arrears, one-off settlements or revisions.

Why doubling six months is a fragile forecast

External services include transport, insurance, aviation, telecommunications, professional services, maintenance and other obligations that can support real economic activity. The problem is not the category itself, but the inability of the public tables to show which purposes drove the acceleration and what domestic capacity might substitute over time.

Services can be productive—and still opaque

The source must be identified precisely: a balance-of-payments debit, an accepted bank request and an executed transfer measure different events. Mixing them can overstate both the flow and the pressure on reserves. No annual loss can be inferred from a half-year conversion without that classification.

The monthly disclosure that would make the total auditable

The central bank should monitor large service payments by purpose, counterparty country, recurrence and connection to domestic beneficiaries. Public procurement authorities should separately examine state-funded contracts, while banking supervision tests invoices, economic substance and related parties.

Publish monthly service payments by purpose, sector, destination, number of transactions, median value and execution status. Large exceptional settlements and arrears should be identified separately, and the services total should be reconciled with the balance of payments and the banks’ foreign-exchange-use report.

Editorial method: This investigation rebuilds the original calculation from the linked public records, preserves the source period and transaction stage, and separates documented figures from estimates, interpretation and allegations.

Mohamed Algarj