Israel's economy grew 7.8%(!) in 4th quarter of 2010
I find these statistics hard to believe and I live here. But the economists are telling us that Israel's economy grew at an astounding 7.8% rate in the 4th quarter of 2010. The Israeli business newspaper Globes has an article quoting the Israeli finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, attributing the robust gains to, among other things, an earned-income tax credit and "a network of railways and highways to the periphery." Globes columnist Avi Temkin, meanwhile, warns of inflation and a housing bubble.I guess that earned income tax credit is going to go to all the high tech people who were laid off at year's end. Yes, there were plenty of them, and I know that many of them have not found jobs yet.
Our growth rate for the year was 4.5% and the predictions for the 4th quarter had ranged from 4.0-4.6%, so clearly this was unexpected.
But to me, this might be the most amazing part:
The IMF also sees unemployment falling again in Israel to 5.5 percent from 6.0 percent in 2010, and foreign currency reserves climbing to $74 billion, from $70.9 billion in 2010.I can remember drafting prospectuses in the early '90's when I first came on aliya, and the foreign currency reserves were always something we disclosed when we were drafting the country-specific risk factors. They were under $10 billion at the time.
I'd love to see our unemployment rate keep falling....
Maybe Obama should hire Bibi and Steinitz to run his economy? Heh.
Labels: Israeli economy
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:48 AM
2 Comments:
Is this why France and others want to replace the Dollar? Eventually, they will have to choose the Shekel!
Other than congratulations, I have only one more thing to say:
Drill, baby, drill!
Well, and maybe one more: get desalination set up all along your coastline to pull water out of the Med. Then you'll be able to keep moving on up without being held hostage by the neighbors. It's really fabulous what Israel is doing!
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