targets can be met. but if growth is slower, the government will have to decide whether to cut the growth rate of government spending, or rather forgo some of the planned tax rate decreases, or to do some of both. this will be a difficult decision. in making it the government will have to weigh the benefits of maintaining government programs in a variety of areas, including education, against the benefits of cutting taxes. in international comparisons, israel is typically somewhere around 25 – 30 in the country rankings as a place in which to do business. we seem to be unusual in the variance of the rankings of the individual components of the indices : we do well on the ease of financing and the openness of the economy ; we do not well on the complexities of the tax system ; and we do very badly on bureaucracy. i fear also that in years to come we will do much worse on the corruption index. if we are to sustain growth, we need to reduce bureaucracy and fight the corruption that so often accompanies it. these too are not easy tasks, but they are essential for the wellbeing of israeli society. israel ’ s economic record is all the more remarkable for having been achieved despite our not being at peace with all our neighbors. even in the last five years, we have twice fought limited wars against neighbors. this economy, with its dynamism and creativity, could grow much faster if we were to achieve peace with our neighbors – and there are of course much better reasons than economic growth to hope and work for peace with our neighbors. this is an ambitious agenda. if we were to achieve it, we could within one or two decades find ourselves living in one of the most advanced economies in the world. is it possible? yes, entirely. if you wish it, it is no legend – but it will take extremely hard work and determination to turn the wish into reality. thank you.

on society. i see and hear publications that those with the main adverse impacts are youth and students. in actuality, the reality is more complicated. the coronavirus of unemployment negatively impacted the entire economy! it did so without distinguishing between age, geographic location, the self - employed, wage earners, women, men, arabs, ultraorthodox, and essentially everyone. i see in this a very important issue, from the economic as well as the social perspectives. let me give 2 examples on which to focus : the population aged 55 and older still have 10 – 15 years of work ahead, and a considerable percentage of them have not yet returned to the labor market. it should be remembered that this is a population for whom it is often the peak of their lives and the peak of their careers. there is a real concern that without government assistance in training they will not be able to return to the labor market in the years remaining in their career. we are liable to lose here 15 years of work and productivity of tens of thousands of workers. another point worth remembering is that unemployment has reached the center of the country, and can be seen today from hadera to gadera, an area that was less exposed to unemployment — the middle of the country, which contains 41 percent of israel ’ s population, today contains 55 percent of the unemployed in israel. therefore it is important to us, that beyond holding training, we should increase the flexibility of the ability to return to the labor market. the mechanism for that exists today, and it should be maintained and even developed further. thus, for example, an employee who wants to, and can, return to work on a part - time basis will be able to collect partial unemployment benefits. the worker ’ s economic status will improve and the burden on the government and the budget will decline. it is clear to us that there are more than a few employers who will not immediately return to 100 percent activity and these abilities to increase flexibility are very important. in addition, it is also important to stick to a model of maintaining employment, which has already been discussed a lot, and with it to increase the ability to incentivize employers to retain employees. there is a concern that even after the vaccine we will remain for some time with a considerable amount of uncertainty in the labor market, and it is not impossible that demand for workers will still be low. the range of these steps and the focus on the populations that need assistance will help to