(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Monday, 24 December 2018), at the President's Residence in Jerusalem, attended the appointment ceremony for Bank of Israel Governor Prof. Amir Yaron. Following is an excerpt from the Prime Minister's remarks:
"The steps that we have taken up until now have helped us weather major storms in the past and I am certain that we will also weather the current storm in the capital markets. The Israeli economy is strong and it is creating an important value -- competitive value for goods and services that we want to buy and we are doing so all the time.
We have the ability of initiatives and creativity for new goods and services that are among the best in the world and for certain things are the best in the world. We have the ability due to our policy of opening new markets. We have opened huge markets and we are in the advanced stages of negotiating a free trade agreement with China. This will give things that are hard to conceive of. A small slice of a huge market will lift the economy. The global markets are opening.
Mistakes by bank governors are liable to exact a very heavy price. On the other hand the concern over mistakes must not lead the governor to adopt a policy devoid of risks. Only if the banking system adopts technological innovation and vital reforms can we preserve and even increase growth in the Israeli economy.
Before you, Governor, are two intertwined choices. Their realization will dominate the national economy in the coming years.
The first task is to increase competitiveness in the banking system. Israel’s economy, industry and the knowledge-based sector are very competitive, but the banks are much less competitive. There is a high level of concentration. Therefore, in the tension between stability and efficiency, the Governor must move the center of gravity toward greater efficiency because only in this way will the business sector be able to move the wheels of the economy forward.
The second task is to bring Israel into the new era of technologies that already exists today and in which we excel in creating them and selling them abroad. This will facilitate better access to available credit for all stages and sizes of business, from small to large. We need to ensure access to everyone from the consumer to large companies. This needs to be done responsibly, because we do not want to see a credit bubble here.”