P.M Netanyahu met with finance minister and economy minister to discuss prices surge

Last night (Monday) a first working meeting was held at the Prime Minister's Office between Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister Bezalel Smotritz. In part, their individual advisors participated, but for an entire hour Netanyahu and Smotrich sat alone and discussed the state of the economy face-to-face and made a first assessment of the situation in relation to the economic measures to be taken in the areas of rising prices in the economy and rising apartment prices.
For the first meeting, the senior finance officials were not invited, including CEO Ram Blinkov, head of the budget department Yogev Gerdos and director of the Tax Authority Eran Yaakov, who were previously invited to participate in meetings between the prime minister and the finance minister. This may have been due to the desire of the two to keep secret for the time being the moves they are planning in the economy the state for the coming months. A wider meeting is expected to take place in the coming week.
On behalf of the Prime Minister, the former chairman of the National Economic Council, Prof. Avi Simhon, unexpectedly participated in part of the meeting, and it was learned that he is expected to return to his position, after this will soon be approved by the government.
In the meantime, following the meeting, the senior officials of the Ministry of Finance began to examine two main issues: the possibility of assistance to the electric company to moderate the high increase in the price of electricity, which went up by 8.2% this month, after it already went up by 8.6% at the end of last summer. This is not a complete cancellation of the price increase that cost NIS 2.2 billion. The significant increase in electricity prices burdens mainly the expenses of the weaker sections.
Also, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance are asking to re-examine the tax discount on fuel, which ended on December 31, with the expiration of the decree signed by the previous Minister of Finance, Avigdor Lieberman. At the same time, the decision that has taken shape in the meantime is to go back and reduce the tax on fuel only to the extent that fuel will become more expensive due to the increase in oil prices in the world at the beginning of next month. The price of a barrel of oil in the world actually decreased recently, and if it weren't for the cancellation of the tax discount at the end of December - the price of fuel would have decreased by 24 cents this month.
It was also learned that for the time being the treasury is not looking into a subsidy for the local authorities to cancel the 1.4% increase in the property taxes at the beginning of the month. The Treasury will also not intervene in the water price of 3.5% as of yesterday.
At the meeting, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance discussed the preparation of the state budget and the Law of Arrangements for the years 2023-24, however it was only a preliminary discussion and as far as is known at the moment no principles were agreed upon for the new budget.