Key View: We forecast real household spending in Israel to start to recover in 2021, growing by 5.0% y-o-y, after the Covid-19 pandemic lead to a 6.7% y-o-y contraction in consumer spending in 2020. Improving economic growth will feed through into stronger employment figures and, together with remaining government stimulus measures, will support

Key View

• Covid-19 hospitalisations in Israel continue to decline sharply, part of this is due to lockdown restrictions, however, differences across age groups indicates a strong impact from vaccine rollout.
• We expect a similar decline across younger age groups as Israel’s vaccine rollout programme progresses, people over 16 are now eligible

Key View

• The implementation of a third nationwide lockdown in December 2020 will continue to constrain the recovery of the Israel's retail sector into the first quarter of 2021.
• Israel's retail sector was already struggling prior to the the start of its third lockdown, and the recovery of retail sales has been relatively weak, with per capita

Key View

• At Fitch Solutions, we estimate that Israel’s current account surplus slipped from 3.6% of GDP in 2019 to 2.5% in 2020 as a result of falling export revenues.
• Over the coming years, however, we expect that the surplus will widen steadily, reaching 3.6% of GDP by 2025.
• This will be driven by stronger global demand and increased

Key View

Key View: Israel is a global outperformer in our Autos Sales Risk/Reward Index due to its low risk operating environment and due to the country's wealthy, highly urbanised population. That said, the growth potential for automakers will be capped by the country's small driving-age population.

Key View

• Measures taken to protect high risk population has kept mortality rate low.
• Ultra-orthodox patients make up a disproportionate number of Covid-19 patients in Israel.
• Israel’s already tight public medicines budget for 2020 has been stretched in battling Covid-19 pandemic.
• Israel studies claimed progress in Covid-19 antibody trials.

Key View

• We at Fitch Solutions expect the Bank of Israel to cut its main policy rate by 15 basis points to 0.10% at its April 6 meeting.
• Our forecast is based on sharply lower inflation expectations since the start of March and indications that economic activity will suffer in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
• If the bank’s new

Key View

• Non-traditional automotive markets such as Israel will grow in prominence as the industry adapts to the growing role of technology.
• Israeli companies have a particular expertise in cybersecurity, which will underpin the connected and autonomous car industry.
• The use of connected technology will spread beyond just operating vehicles