The Bank of Israel announced Monday afternoon that the rate of interest it charges Israeli banks will remain unchanged at .5 percent for the month of May. In a statement accompanying the announcement, the bank said that "the risks that the economy will slide into deflation have declined, and in the current circumstances the probability that inflation will return to within the target range by the end of the year has increased."
The statement noted, "At this stage of the crisis, the conditions created by the Bank of Israel's policy are serving to moderate the effects of the global crisis and to help the economy recover from it," and "Negative data continue to arrive that indicate further contraction of activity, but at the same time other data point to a moderation in the rate of decline."