The shekel strengthened against the dollar and euro in morning inter-bank trading today, after the Central Bureau of Statistics yesterday announced that Israel's GDP grew by an annualized rate of 4.7% in the first quarter of 2011. The shekel-dollar exchange rate is down 0.51% to NIS 3.521/$ and the shekel-euro exchange rate is down 0.11% to NIS 4.99/€.
Yesterday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative exchange rate at NIS 3.538/$, 1.52% higher than the day before, and set the shekel-euro representative exchange rate at NIS 4.995/€, up 0.10%.
In international markets, the dollar strengthened 0.14% against the euro to $1.418/€. It rose slightly against the pound sterling to $1.621/₤ and rose 0.1% against the yen to ¥81.385.
Impact Portfolio Management analyst Tzhi Liebovitz said, "These are strong growth figures that can definitely support a decision by the Governor [of the Bank of Israel Prof. Stanley Fischer] to raise the interest rate by 25 basis points at the end of the month. Private consumption and business sector figures also support this, and serve as solid grounds for the governor's to raise the interest rate."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 17, 2011
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