Israel finished successful debt raising in the amount of about 1.5 billion euros

The Accountant General of the Treasury, Roni Hezekiah, who is about to retire, has in recent days carried out successful debt raising in the amount of about 1.5 billion euros. The issues were made for short periods this time, of two years and four years and the average interest rate was zero - less than 0.02%. The deficit reached 8.1% of GDP in August.
The issues were led by Deputy Accountant General Gil Cohen, and the underwriters in the issues were Bank of America, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Citibank, which serve as primary market makers in government bonds.
The need to take out loans this year, time and time again in recent months, stems from the huge deficit in the state coffers and "boxes", an Israeli patent invented by the Ministry of Finance to finance - outside the unapproved state budget - the huge expenses for Corona.
In total, the Ministry of Finance has already allocated NIS 190 billion to finance the crisis. 100 billion in the various programs in the first closure and another about 90 billion from then until today. The funds were used primarily to pay the grants and compensation to citizens and business owners, amounting to tens of billions of shekels. Also, for the transfer of billions of shekels to the budget of the health system, to the education system and temporary transfers to the various government ministries, such as the transfer made only in the last week of NIS 3.1 billion to the defense system.
The Accountant General has so far taken out various loans, issuing debentures of the State of Israel for periods of 10 years, 30 years and even a record in the first issue ever for 100 years. The state of the state coffers brought Israel during the corona crisis from an excellent debt ratio on a global scale on the eve of the crisis of 59% compared to the state's annual product, to a debt that is now approaching 80% of GDP.
The debt is expected to rise further, depending on the duration of the corona crisis and the need to compensate more citizens and businesses and fund the health, education and welfare systems, including the payment by next June of unemployment benefits to close to one million unemployed.
This means that Israeli citizens, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have to repay these debts over the next 100 years, which could hurt the government's ability to increase its civilian budgets in the coming years for the benefit of the country's residents, such as health, education, welfare and security.
Hezekiah said the state's ability to raise debt at zero interest rates during the corona crisis should be noted. "This indicates the trust that global investors are acquiring in the State of Israel, and is the result, among other things, of the department's regular and long-term staff work in recent years."
According to Senior Deputy Accountant General Gil Cohen, “The Accountant General Division is using a variety of tools to fund the high deficit as a result of the corona crisis and the sharp decline in the raising of designated bonds from pension funds. The global market is an important and complementary tool to the main financing tool, which is IPOs in the Israeli market. "