Israel

BMI View: Latest CPI data appears to have led the FX market to believe that the Bank of Israel cannot risk another rate cut, and we tentatively agree, at least as far as the February... 2007-02-16

BMI View: The official budget deficit is well under control, and we forecast it to remain so, but with a total public debt burden of 94% of GDP, Israel should watch total spending,... 2007-02-06

We have revised up our end-year external debt forecast from US$76bn (60% of GDP) to US$81bn (65% of GDP), on the back of fairly heavy borrowing so far this year: external debt rose... 2007-02-05

Recent reports of non-official level talks between Israeli and Syrian diplomats are encouraging. Under the terms of the proposed deal Israel would hand back nominal control of the... 2007-02-05

The Bank of Israel (BoI) has cut its key lending base rate by 25bps to 4.25%, and is, for the first time in history, 100bps below the US Federal Funds Rate. While we had anticipated... 2007-01-30

BMI View: With both President Moshe Katsav and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert having been under intense pressure to resign of late (and with the former having succumbed on January 24th),... 2007-01-25

We remain sanguine about the official budget outlook, believing that the deficit will narrow gradually from 2% of GDP to 0.5% of GDP over the forecast period. However, we note that... 2007-01-11

The investigation of Finance Minister Abraham Hirschson over allegations relating to a fraud committed (by one of his employees) is the latest in a string of bad news for the Kadima-Labor... 2007-01-09

Our positive view of the shekel continues to play out, with the unit remaining more or less stable since the Bank of Israel unexpectedly cut its base lending rate by 50bps to 4.50%... 2007-01-02

BMI View: We see a Likud victory over the next two years as more than plausible, given high levels of public discontent with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.