Today, the Bank of Israel released the minutes of the Monetary Committee meeting of November 27, at which it was decided to keep the central bank's key interest rate at 0.1%.
The committee members agreed that the current interest rate level was appropriate for the low inflation environment and domestic economic activity, given prevailing global conditions both in economic activity and in monetary developments in the leading markets, and that it was conducive to restoring Israel's inflation rate to within the target range.
The committee members expressed the view that given the risks to reaching the inflation target and the time it would take for inflation to return to within the target range, it was likely that monetary policy in Israel would remain expansionary for a long time to come.
On housing, the committee noted that home prices were continuing to rise this year at the same rate as last year, and that the rise in the stock of unsold housing and relatively low sales of new homes had not yet had an impact on prices.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 10, 2016
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