organization:bank of israel

  • #blockchain After the Gold Rush
    https://hackernoon.com/blockchain-after-the-gold-rush-e1c6d3044dae?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3--

    How Ethereum Smart Contracts Can Replace Central Banks!Minneapolis #fed President Neel Kashkari said a few weeks ago:If you live in any modern advanced economy I would stick with the dollar and leave bitcoin for the, you know, toy collectors.https://medium.com/media/b083d0da2ce2efb7441d4ab45ccb518d/hrefBut why do central bankers call us toy collectors? Why are they confident that we can never challenge their monopoly and sovereignty in the money market? Why can not cryptocurrencies compete with government-issued money? What is money that cryptocurrencies are not? Let’s see what the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel says about that:[A money] fulfills the functions ascribed to it in the economic literature — a unit of account, a mean of payment, and stability that enables it serve as a (...)

    #ethereum-smart-contracts #after-the-gold-rush #central-bank

  • La surévaluation du shekel bride la croissance de l’économie d’Israël

    Israel’s economy: Shekeled and bound | The Economist
    http://www.economist.com

    The strong shekel is hurting Israel’s economy more than the conflict in Gaza

    Aug 30th 2014 | Jerusalem | From the print edition

    More guns, less butter

    JUDGING by the actions of the Bank of Israel, Israel’s central bank, the economy is in worrying shape. The bank’s Monetary Committee, at its monthly meeting on August 25th, cut its main interest rate from 0.5% to 0.25%—the lowest on record.

    Few had seen the cut coming. Bond prices prior to the move had implied that there would be no change in rates for the next three months. The bank had only just cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point the month before, matching the previous record low. Furthermore, the statement accompanying July’s cut had a hawkish tone, implying that the cycle of interest-rate cuts that had begun in September 2011 was at, or near, its end.

    The main change since the July meeting has been the Israeli army’s latest incursion into Gaza, in response to rocket attacks on southern Israel. The hostilities have dented consumption, especially in the southern part of the country, near Gaza. Tourism, which accounts for 7 % of Israel’s GDP, has slumped throughout the country, ruining this year’s peak summer season. But the Bank of Israel suggests that the fighting, and the drag on the economy it has produced, were not the main reason for the committee’s decision. Instead the bank noted that inflation is well below its 1-3 % target and the economy has been slowing across the board. The most recent GDP figures - growth of 1.2 % in the second quarter compared with a year before - were anaemic by Israel’s recent standards.

    These unhappy trends may have been aggravated by the hostilities in Gaza, but they long preceded them. Israel’s economy had once seemed indomitable, shrugging off the financial crisis and a series of conflicts with Islamic militants in Gaza and southern Lebanon, among other trials. But growth has been slowly decelerating since 2011. It remained perky enough to allow unemployment to continue to decline until the end of last year, to a low of 5.7 %. The budget deficit has also been falling, to 2.4 % of GDP for the year ending in May - the lowest level since 2007.

    However, these positive trends have either already reversed, or seem set to do so. The finance minister, for instance, recently admitted that the deficit in next year’s budget will rise to at least 3%. Meanwhile, industrial production has shrunk and—most worryingly of all—so have industrial exports. (Israel’s exports—many of them software and IT equipment—account for about 40% of GDP.)

    In part, the slowdown stems from the weakness of the global economy. But another factor behind both the worryingly low rate of inflation and the decline in exports has been the strength of the shekel. The currency has appreciated by 15 % since the height of the euro crisis in 2012, as measured by the Bank of Israel’s trade-weighted index.

    That strength is tied in large part to buoyant foreign investment, much of it in the form of expensive takeovers of Israeli tech firms. Israel’s nascent production of natural gas, which has cut fuel imports and thus boosted the current-account surplus, has also contributed. The Bank of Israel has built up $84 billion in foreign reserves resisting the shekel’s rise. But its preferred weapon against the currency’s appreciation has been a long series of interest-rate cuts, initiated under the previous governor, Stanley Fischer (now deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve), and continued under his successor, Karnit Flug.

    Low interest rates, however, are fuelling a giddy rise in house prices, as in so many other countries. In that respect, the run of disappointing economic news may come as something of a relief to the Bank of Israel. It appears to have diminished the shekel’s value somewhat - setting the stage, with luck, for a recovery in exports.❞

  • Israel begins offshore gas production

    By John Reed in Jerusalem

    Gas from the Tamar field, the smaller of Israel’s two biggest offshore reservoirs, began to flow at 4pm on Saturday, the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources said

    The Tamar project cost $3bn, took four years to develop, and is the largest privately funded infrastructure project in Israeli history.

    The Bank of Israel estimates that the Tamar field will contribute a percentage point of the country’s gross domestic product growth this year, which is estimated to reach 3.8 per cent

    FT
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3de8b0ca-99ea-11e2-83ca-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2PVs4whUh

  • Novembre 2008 : 08TELAVIV2447
    Maintenir l’« entité hostile » au bord de l’effondrement
    http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/11/08TELAVIV2447.html

    While the GOI believes that maintaining the shekel as the currency of the Palestinian Territories is in Israel’s interests, it treats decisions regarding the amount of shekels in circulation in Gaza as a security matter. Requests by Palestinian banks to transfer shekels into Gaza are ultimately approved, partially approved, or denied by the National Security Council (NSC), an organ of the Israeli security establishment, not by the Bank of Israel (BOI). As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to econoffs on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge (see reftel &D8). The PAs request to set an NIS 100 million floor on monthly transfers to Gaza is being looked at, but no action will be taken until after January 2009, when the Palestinians political situation becomes more clear. Complicating the Gaza issue, and Palestinian banking as a whole, is Bank Hapoalim’s recent decision to terminate its correspondent banking relationship with the Palestinian banking sector (see reftel &C8). Hapoalim remains determined to stand by its objective to sever ties on November 30, though observers have their doubts that Hapoalim will follow through on the initiative (septel).

    3. (SBU) The GOIs monetary policy towards Gaza is consistent with its declaration that Gaza is a “hostile entity.” Some observers have told Emboffs that political pressure arising from the issue of captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, may have influenced high-level Israeli officials to tighten their stance on monetary policy (see ref &A8). However, this has not been raised or confirmed by any high-level GOI contacts. The GOI position on cash to Gaza has remained negative since the Knessets declaration that it was a hostile entity.

    Note : quand ce câble évoque l’« entité hostile », malgré ce qu’on pourrait légitimement croire, ça ne désigne pas Israël.