Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer has accepted another five-year term at the invitation of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. A special press conference was held Wednesday to announce the renewal, with a law passed in Knesset Tuesday to enable Fischer to continue in his post.
Prime Minister Netanyahu told Fischer that there is no one better for the job. On his part, Fischer said he accepts the second term with "great respect", and marveled at the choppy financial waters Israel has had to navigate since he came into office, namely the global economic crisis which began in 2008.
Fischer took the position of Governor of the Bank of Israel in 2005 after being nominated by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and backed by then-Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Fischer was already intimately familiar with Israel's economy, having advised U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz on Israel's economy in 1983, and drafting an economic stabilization package for Israel at the World Bank in 1985. Before coming to work in Israel, he had been a professor at MIT and an executive at Citigroup Inc.
One of Fischer's foremost goals has been to get new Bank of Israel Law passed, setting the goals and parameters of the Bank of Israel. He took part in drafting a version of such legislation that was passed by the Knesset on Tuesday.
In February, Fischer travelled to China to push the country into supporting sanctions against Iran. He was accompanied by former IDF Chief of Staff, Minister for Strategic Threats Moshe Yaalon. China and Russia have been the largest obstacles to a United Nations Security Council commitment to place harsher sanctions on Iran.