BancaMarch : The Bank of Israel has announced the sale of $30bn of foreign currency – 5.5% of Israeli GDP – and an additional $15bn in swaps. The shekel-dollar pairing is down -2% to 3.92 in the wake of the Gaza attack, values not seen in almost eight years.
The Israeli central bank plans to intervene in the markets in order to provide liquidity and stabilise the currency. Since 2008, the country has accumulated a large amount of foreign currency, up to $200 billion, to prevent the shekel from appreciating excessively and negatively affecting exporters due to the massive inflow of foreign capital in the technology sector.
