In the latest bad news for Israel’s slowing economy, the Treasury says it is updating its growth estimates for 2015 downward to 2.6 percent.
The new estimate is fully 0.5 percentage points lower than the last estimate of 3.1% issued by the Finance Ministry’s Chief Economist in July, according to the Israeli business journal Calcalist.
Growth for 2016 is also pushed down in the latest forecast, from 3.3% to 2.9%.
The announcement follows just hours after the Central Bureau of Statistics announced Thursday that second quarter 2015 GDP growth was just 0.1% annualized, a steep drop from the first quarter’s 1.8%.
The growth estimate update is based on “economic developments in Israel and the world, and the increase in tax collection in recent months,” the Finance Ministry says.
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