Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have released a joint statement in response to Moody's Investors Service's decision to change the outlook on Israel's credit ratings to stable from positive.
"Israel's economy is stable and robust, and G-d willing, it will remain so. Moody's Investors Service's analysts correctly identify the strength of Israel's economy in all indexes and the correct and responsible economic leadership that we lead, with the wise management of public spending and the advancement of growth-encouraging reforms.
The public spending makeup and lowering the national debt support and will continue to support the growth of the economy and the increase of growth and production, as well as reducing regulation, investing in integrating populations into the workforce, and creating a more competitive and effective free market.
We are passing a responsible growth and infrastructure-tending budget and are keeping budgetary frameworks to fight inflation and cost of living, and are promoting a dramatic economic arrangments law that will enable the acceleration of national infrastructure projects, remove obstacles in the housing and import sectors, reduce regulation and bureaucracy, promote competition in the stock market and banking industry, and fight the black market in the center of organized crime to restore governance and personal security," the response stated.
Regarding Moody's decision Netanyahu and Smotrich state: "The analysts at Moody's concerns regarding the public controversy and its effect on Israel’s political and economic stability is natural for those who do not know the strength of Israeli society. As those who believe in the strength of Israeli society, its unity, and its ability to overcome controversy and crises, as we have done many times in the past, we are convinced that that will be G-d willing this time.
The state of Israel is a strong democracy, and because of that, Israeli citizens hold lively discourse over issues that are the center of controversy in Israeli society, and those are signs of the strength of Israeli democracy."
Netanyahu and Smotrich added: "Naturally, fierce political controversies lead to protests and can create temporary uncertainty; those are the risks that are considered and defined in the state of Israel's economic assessments.
There will be no harm to Israeli democracy and the Israeli economy. And we will continue to lead responsible economic, security, and social policies and will do everything for an Israeli economy that is stable, growing, and blooming."