Likud party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu promised on Tuesday that the Likud will take the Finance and Education portfolios after the February elections. At a news conference on the party's economic policy, Netanyahu said he will be personally involved in seeing Israel through the effects of the global economic crisis.

The Opposition Leader repeated his recent pledge for tax cuts and said the just announced prime rate cut by the Bank of Israel was a step in the right direction but not enough, adding that non-bank credit had to be developed as well as bank credit. He also pushed for real-estate reform.