Israel
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| Introduction - Israel: | | Location - Israel: | | People - Israel: | | Government - Israel: | | Economy - Israel: | Economy overview | Israel has a technologically advanced market economy with substantial, though diminishing, government participation. It depends on imports of crude oil, grains, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Israel imports substantial quantities of grain, but is largely self-sufficient in other agricultural products. Cut diamonds, high-technology equipment, and agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) are the leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable trade deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans. Roughly half of the governments external debt is owed to the US, which is its major source of economic and military aid. The bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict; difficulties in the high-technology, construction, and tourist sectors; and fiscal austerity in the face of growing inflation led to small declines in GDP in 2001 and 2002. The economy rebounded in 2003-05, growing at a 4% to 5.2% rate each year, as the government tightened fiscal policy and implemented structural reforms to boost competition and efficiency in the markets. The conflict with Lebanon in summer 2006 slightly dampened GDP growth, but continuing strong foreign investment, tax revenue, and private consumption levels helped the economy recover quickly. | | Gdp purchasing power parity | $170.3 billion (2006 est.) | | Gdp official exchange rate | $140.3 billion (2006 est.) | | Gdp real growth rate | 4.8% (2006 est.) | | Gdp per capita ppp | $26,800 (2006 est.) | | Gdp composition by sector | agriculture: 2.6%
industry: 30.8%
services: 66.6% (2006 est.) | | Labor force | 2.6 million (2006 est.) | | Labor force by occupation | agriculture, forestry, and fishing 1.8%, manufacturing 15.7%, construction 5.3%, wholesale and retail trade 12.9%, transport, storage, and communications 6.3%, finance and business 16.9%, personal and other services 11.5%, public services 28.6% (1996) | | Unemployment rate | 8.3% (30 September 2006) | | Population below poverty line | 21.6% (2005) | | Household income or consumption by percentage share | lowest 10%: 2.4%
highest 10%: 28.31% (2005) | | Distribution of family income gini index | 38.6 (2005) | | Inflation rate consumer prices | -0.1% (2006) | | Investment gross fixed | 17.3% of GDP (2006 est.) | | Budget | revenues: $48.4 billion
expenditures: $49.57 billion; including capital expenditures of $NA (2006 est.) | | Public debt | 89% of GDP (2006 est.) | | Agriculture products | citrus, vegetables, cotton; beef, poultry, dairy products | | Industries | high-technology projects (including aviation, communications, computer-aided design and manufactures, medical electronics, fiber optics), wood and paper products, potash and phosphates, food, beverages, and tobacco, caustic soda, cement, construction, metals products, chemical products, plastics, diamond cutting, textiles, footwear | | Industrial production growth rate | 8.6% (2006 est.) | | Electricity production | 46.07 billion kWh (2004) | | Electricity consumption | 41.38 billion kWh (2004) | | Electricity exports | 1.47 billion kWh (2004) | | Electricity imports | 0 kWh (2004) | | Oil production | 100 bbl/day (2006 est.) | | Oil consumption | 249,500 bbl/day (2006 est.) | | Oil exports | NA bbl/day | | Oil imports | NA bbl/day | | Oil proved reserves | 2 million bbl (1 January 2005) | | Natural gas production | 792 million cu m (2005 est.) | | Natural gas consumption | 792 million cu m (2005 est.) | | Natural gas exports | 0 cu m (2005 est.) | | Natural gas imports | 0 cu m (2005 est.) | | Natural gas proved reserves | 38.94 billion cu m (1 January 2005 est.) | | Current account balance | $1.463 billion (2006 est.) | | Exports | $42.86 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.) | | Exports commodities | machinery and equipment, software, cut diamonds, agricultural products, chemicals, textiles and apparel | | Exports partners | US 38.4%, Belgium 6.5%, Hong Kong 5.9% (2006) | | Imports | $47.8 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.) | | Imports commodities | raw materials, military equipment, investment goods, rough diamonds, fuels, grain, consumer goods | | Imports partners | US 12.4%, Belgium 8.2%, Germany 6.7%, Switzerland 5.9%, UK 5.1%, China 5.1% (2006) | | Reserves of foreign exchange and gold | $28.2 billion (2006 est.) | | Debt external | $81.98 billion (30 June 2006 est.) | | Economic aid recipient | $240 million from US (FY06) | | Currency code | new Israeli shekel (ILS); note - NIS is the currency abbreviation; ILS is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) code for the NIS | | Exchange rates | new Israeli shekels per US dollar - 4.4565 (2006), 4.4877 (2005), 4.482 (2004), 4.5541 (2003), 4.7378 (2002) | |
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This page was last updated on 16 September, 2007
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