The bank believes that Israeli domestic demand will be the main economic driver in 2012
Bank Leumi economists, updated last week the bank’s economic growth predictions for 2011 and 2012. Bank Leumi's economic department projects that Israel’s economic growth will reach 4.9% in 2011 and will slow to 3.3% in 2012 as a result of the slowdown in global markets and the local social justice protests.
According to the Bank's analysts: “Israel’s economic situation will in coming years be influenced by the rate of growth in the world’s leading markets. In addition to this important factor, there will also be great importance in how [the country] responds to the social protests and the government’s line on economic policy.”
The Leumi economists stressed that today there is a great deal of uncertainty as a result of recent vacillations in the global markets as a result of the European debt crisis and the US budget crisis. The bank believes that Israeli domestic demand will be the main economic driver in 2012.
The new growth projections from Bank Leumi contradict those published by the Bank of Israel, which predicts that Israel’s economic growth for 2011 will be 3.8%. On the other hand, the BOI foresees 4.5% economic growth in 2012 – considerably higher than Leumi’s estimate.
