The shekel is strengthening against the dollar and is weakening against the euro today. In morning inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate was down 0.18% from yesterday's representative rate at NIS 3.5996/$ and up 0.27% against the euro at 3.996/€.
Yesterday, Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate up 0.222% compared with Monday's rate at NIS 3.606/$, and the representative shekel-euro rate was set up 1.029% at NIS 3.985/€.
The shekel had been slipping yesterday after the Central Bureau of Statistics published its initial estimate that the economy grew at just 1.4% in the first quarter of 2017. The Bank of Israel and others had expected much stronger growth of around 3.7%.
However, by this morning the shekel-dollar exchange rate had again fallen below NIS 3.60/$ and traders await the intervention of the Bank of Israel, which in recent months has seen protecting that key rate as a reason for purchasing foreign currency to weaken the shekel. Earlier this week, for example, the Bank of Israel purchased several hundred million dollars in foreign currency to weaken the shekel and assist exporters, when the rate fell below NIS 3.60/$.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 17, 2017
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