The shekel is strengthening against the dollar and against the euro. In Friday inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate was down 1.04% from Wednesday's representative rate, before the Purim holiday, at NIS 3.449/$, and down 0.23% against the euro at 4.249/€.
On Wednesday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate up 0.201% from yesterday's exchange rate at NIS 3.485/$ and set the shekel-euro rate down 0.502% at 4.259/€.
The dollar has been weakening on world markets after President Donald Trump unveiled his planned steel and aluminum tariffs, fueling fears of international trade wars, and also driving down world stock markets.
The shekel-dollar exchange rate has fallen to the three-year lows seen at the start of February before the dollar rallied last month. The shekel has also strengthened against the euro meaning that the Israeli currency's present strength cannot be purely explained by the dollar's weakness.
The shekel's robustness reflects the strength and strong prospects of the Israeli economy and the Bank of Israel's confidence that inflation will return to the government's 1%-3% target range, allowing for interest rate hikes later this year.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 2, 2018
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018