Netanyahu: We’ll freeze fuel, electricity, water prices and local tax

At the Globes Israel Business Conference, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu presented his plan for dealing with inflation. He spoke about freezing four items that “generate inflation,” electricity, fuel, water and local taxes. “I plan freezing all four and creating a reversed circle. This would influence all prices in the economy. Where are the sources for this? We will easily do it. There is a tax surplus of NIS 60 billion. In addition we are taking gas out of the sea. Royalties will reach NIS 10 billion by the end of the year, and that will easily cover it.”

Netanyahu added, “We have already rescued Israel from a global economic crisis. Do you remember the huge dot.com crisis or the sub-prime crisis? In 2020, Israel’s economy accelerated out of the Covid crisis. It was not a health crisis but a health and economic crisis first and foremost. Yair Lapid said that we would not bring even five vaccine doses for our people. I brought maybe five vaccine doses for every citizen. We brought millions of vaccine doses. But we also worked with the business community and the people of Israel, because I saw that the global interest rate was low. We could borrow and return to growth without jeopardizing Israel’s financial situation. A global crisis is not an excuse.

“We know how to manage it, and we have proven it. We have received the praise of the markets and even of Nobel Prize laureates in Economics. The results speak for themselves, under our policies Israel has become the eighth power in the world. As far as it depends on me, I will continue doing this.”

Netanyahu also said, “Governments led by me brought about a major revolution in the State of Israel as a market economy. Now I am told that we are in a global crisis. This is no excuse. We are small and agile. If you know how to lead the economy, you take the necessary actions.”

On the housing crisis, Netanyahu said, “It is true that apartment prices have risen over the years, but in 2016-2018 we curbed the rise in prices, and look what happened in this government (prices rose by 19% – BL). They have no idea how to manage an economy. It’s like letting someone riding a scooter fly a plane. They don’t understand. Yair Lapid asked me when he was a TV presenter. ‘Mr. Minister of Finance, explain something to me, I don’t understand anything about economics,” – and he has proved it.

“The solution is to release 300,000 planned housing units that are being planned by mayors. If we release such an amount onto the market, it will provide a solution for more than a million people. What is the problem that has arisen in the last two years? The budget department and the municipalities are arguing, and a jam is forming. On the first day of the government that we form, I will head a housing cabinet, and it will make one decision first: instructing the budget division to allocate billions for the necessary infrastructure so that we can release hundreds of thousands of housing units for Israel. This is a tremendous and simple solution.”

The Globes Israel Business Conference is held in cooperation with Bank Hapoalim, with sponsorship from The Phoenix Holdings, Amdocs, BDO, HOT, Geely, Shufersal, El Al, Tnuva, Profimex, The Israel Medical Association, My Desk, Contigo, and Cisco, and with the participation of Mekorot, the Israel Innovation Authority, Mobileye, Startup Nation Central, The Port of Ashdod, and Israel Electric Corporation.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on October 26, 2022.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.