JERUSALEM, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of Israel's Monetary Committee announced on Monday that the base interest rate will remain 0.1 percent for at least another month.
The Israeli base interest rate has not changed since March 2015, when it fell from 0.25 percent. Despite forecasts that it will be re-raised in 2018, in the meantime, there has been no change.
The Bank of Israel (BOI) predicts now that the base interest rate will remain until the end of the year at 0.1 percent, and will rise only in the first quarter of 2019 to 0.25 percent, and by the end of the 2019 to 0.5 percent.
The rate decision published Monday was the last one taken during BOI governor Karnit Flug's term, as she will retire in the beginning of November.
Along with the rate decision, Flug criticized in BOI's press conference the ongoing process of electing a new governor. So far, no governor has been chosen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Flug said she announced several months in advance that she would not run for another term, and that "in proper countries, there is period of passing the task from current to new governor."
The BOI also lowered its inflation forecast for the current year to 0.8 percent, from 1.2 percent in the previous forecast.
This means that in all of Flug's years at office, since 2013, the annual target set by the government was not achieved - between one and three percent.
The central bank also expects growth to be 3.7 percent this year and 3.6 percent in 2019; private consumption to rise by four percent this year, and by 3.5 percent in 2019; investment in assets to grow by three percent this year and by 3.5 percent in 2019, and public consumption to increase by three percent each year.
According to further forecasts by the BOI, exports will increase this year by only five percent (compared with 7.3 percent last year), and by 2019 by 5.5 percent; imports will increase by six percent in 2018 and by 4.5 percent in 2019, and unemployment in the two years will be only 3.4 percent. Enditem
