Israel’s foreign currency reserves reached a new record of $52.09 billion in July, the Bank of Israel announced today. This represents a rise of $2.1 billion in comparison with June. The rise was due to purchases of foreign currency worth $2.1 billion by the Bank of Israel in July.
Barclays Capital told Bloomberg yesterday that Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer faces a “rich-man dilemma” trying to stop the shekel’s appreciation as the economy recovers.
Bloomberg reports that Koon Chow, an emerging-markets strategist at Barclays Capital in London, said in a telephone interview that while Israel’s economy will be one of the first in the region of Europe, the Middle East and Africa to rebound from the global recession, Fischer can’t afford to stop buying US dollars in the foreign-exchange market because gains in the shekel would hurt exports.
“The fundamentals of the economy are moving the shekel stronger, but Fischer doesn’t want an overshoot,” Bloomberg reports Koon Chow as saying.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on August 5, 2009
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