Capital Market

The Bank of Israel is on its way to becoming the "big brother" of Israeli citizens: it requires banks and credit card companies to provide it with comprehensive information on the consumer behavior of their customers, which it will centralize in a special database. The database will centralize the expenditure on each citizen's credit cards, the use he made of checks and the amount of cash he withdrew and how he conducted himself with the "grant per citizen" he received. In a letter sent by the Governor's Chief of Staff, Dr. Golan Benita, to the banks and credit card companies, he demanded...

The huge improvement in the state budget data continues, along with increased activity in the economy - which has been open for seven months since the third closure. Although the state budget in August was again in deficit, the deficit is shrinking from month to month. In August, the deficit amounted to only NI 1.2%S 1.1 billion. The decrease in the cumulative deficit in August alone is the largest in all the 2000s - a decrease of to a level of 8%. In June, the budget deficit was 10% and in July 9.2%. Senior officials in the Ministry of Finance explained in the briefing on the budget data...

The second quarter of 2021 was better than expected: the increase in GDP in the second quarter reached an annual rate of 16.6%, compared to the initial estimate that growth was only 15.4% - the Central Bureau of Statistics announced today. This means that the total GDP reached NIS 360 billion in the second quarter - thus surpassing the data for the fourth quarter of 2019 - the last quarter before the outbreak of the corona crisis. However, had it not been for the crisis, Israeli GDP would still have been higher - and the gap has not yet closed

A heated debate took place on Monday in the Knesset's Finance Committee, when the Minister of Finance, Avigdor Lieberman, presented to the committee members "the most social budget ever approved in the Knesset," while the former chairman of the committee, MK Moshe Gafni, claimed that it was "The most anti-social budget that has ever been here." Lieberman emphasized in his remarks that "interest rates should be taken into account. There may be an increase in interest rates and this is a significant event for us." In the first discussion of the presentation of the state budget in the Finance...

There was a significant increase in 2020 in the number of working days lost to the Israeli economy as a result of strikes - 391,000 working days lost compared to only 110,000 working days lost in 2019. However, the number of strikes in the economy decreased last year, because strikes in 2020 were much longer, on average. New data published by the Labor Relations Unit in the Ministry of Economy shows that in 2020, which was entirely in the shadow of the Corona plague, there were "only" 31 strikes in Israel compared to 45 strikes in 2019

The deficit in September continued to decline in September and amounted to NIS 6 billion. In the last 12 months, the deficit has fallen to 7.4% of GDP. State revenues since the beginning of the year amounted to NIS 295 billion, while state expenditures amounted to NIS 346.7 billion. The deficit shrank mainly due to the sharp 26% increase in state revenues in the first three quarters of the year. State revenues from the beginning of 2021 on taxes have jumped by 19.7%, with the sharpest increase (26.3%) recorded in direct taxes. At the same time, "other income" was recorded for the state,...

The Knesset's Economics Committee has approved the food chapter in the import reform, which will shorten the import processes of sensitive food and is supposed to increase competition. According to estimates by the Ministry of Finance, the reform will save consumers about NIS 3 billion a year. This is a chapter from the import reform that the government sought to approve within the framework of the Arrangements Law. The purpose of the reform is to adjust the regulation on imports in Israel to the European one, thus increasing competition and lowering prices. The food chapter is intended to...

Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced today that "immediately after the budget is approved, we are going to launch a large amount of 26 projects in the field of infrastructure, transportation, water, and energy amounting to NIS 110 billion, not including the metro. About NIS 50 billion will be funded by the private market (PPP). - SG). "If we released the first PPP project 20 years ago, now we will release NIS 50 billion in projects here for the private sector - this should bring further impetus to the Israeli economy, which will allow the economy to grow, and bring more employment

On Thursday night, the Finance Committee approved the budget laws for the years 2022-2021 for a second and third reading in the Knesset. Last minute: An additional NIS 91 million was agreed for the opposition in the coalition agreements. After approving the numerical part of the budget last night, the committee also approved the verbal part tonight, thus concluding the budget discussions and the Arrangements Law ahead of next week's Knesset votes. Today, discussions on the Arrangements Law are expected to continue in the various committees in the Knesset, prior to its approval there as...

New data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics reveals that the unemployment rate in Israel, by broad definition, fell in the first half of October to 7.1%, compared with 7.9% in the second half of September, when the Tishrei holidays were held. In the last three months since mid-July, the extended unemployment rate has stuck between 7.6% and 8.1%. At the beginning of November, there were "only" another 12,000 unemployment benefit recipients aged 45 and over, with the payment being suspended for about 100,000 in recent days. By the beginning of 2022, the payment of unemployment...