After a dramatic and volatile week, the shekel strengthened on Friday morning against the dollar and the euro. The Bank of Israel set the shekel dollar representative rate down 0.153% from Thursday's rate at NIS 3.922/$, and the representative shekel-euro rate was set down 0.097%, at NIS 4.428/€.
The past week saw the shekel weaken by nearly 1.2% against the dollar after losing 3% the previous week, while the shekel was down 1.7% against the euro after losing 3.8% the previous week.
After the representative rate was set the shekel was firm against the dollar in afternoon inter-bank trading, with the rate up slightly 0.13% to NIS 3.927/$. The shekel strengthened a further 0.48% against the euro to NIS 4.407/€.
The crisis in China, the Bank of Israel's decision not to cut the interest rate for September and poor GDP growth data for Israel have all weakened the shekel over the past week.
In its weekly survey Union Bank of Israel (TASE: UNON) said that despite the recent depreciation of the shekel against the dollar and euro, "The Israeli currency's movement since the start of the year has made export growth and development of the commercial sector difficult and delayed the return of inflation to the government target back up to the 1%-3% range."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 28, 2015
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