is even more the case when there is no general consensus on the matter of fiscal discipline. we sometimes speak of changes in economic policy, and such changes were essential to developments in the last fifteen years. we must however recognize one important fact : growth derives from the increase in the private sector, and in israel we have a private sector that in the main is successful, innovative and creative. it is a private sector that day after day proves its ability to compete in the world. israel ’ s economy is very open to the world, and this is reflected in various ways : 1. in the current decade ( 2000 – 06 ) the share of exports in gdp has reached an average of about 40 percent. 2. in the same period the share of imports in gdp has reached an average of about 41 percent. 3. foreign investments in israel reached about $ 17 billion in january – october 2006, an all - time peak. 4. israelis ’ investments abroad in january – november 2006 reached about $ 21 billion, of which some $ 12 billion were direct investments. 5. israel is in second place ( after the us ) in terms of the number of companies listed for trading on the nasdaq. what is required of an economy that is open to competition from around the world? there are still areas in which we ought to improve, and here i will refer to aspects in the microeconomic sphere. in this context i would like to mention the doing business report of the world bank, which grades countries according to the ease of doing business in them. israel is listed 26 out of 175, not bad at all. but if we look at the different components that go into this grading, we will see that we were good in certain aspects ( investor protection, obtaining credit, international trade, opening and closing a business ), but we scored very badly in others ( obtaining licenses, enforcing contracts and registering assets ). it is very important that we take steps to improve in these areas in order to contribute to a better business environment. we generally relate to these areas as if they are important for foreign investors. but they are important for all investors in israel ’ s economy, domestic and foreign. every israeli investor has the choice of investing abroad. if we do not improve the atmosphere surrounding investment in israel, we are likely to lose some domestic investments of israeli investors ’. c. the oecd the subject of the openness of israel ’ s economy brings me to the question of israel ’ s joining the o

on target, governing council judged that the risk that growth would slow was not great enough to warrant a cut in interest rates. the main reason was that lower interest rates could reduce the downside risk to growth but could at the same time increase financial vulnerabilities. and this would make it harder to achieve the inflation target in the future. in january, the conditions had changed but the reasoning behind our decision was similar. consumer confidence declined in late 2019, but there seemed to be a reasonable chance that this would prove temporary. furthermore, there were signs that the global economy was bottoming out, and there was a growing consensus that world economic growth would edge higher in 2020. accordingly, we again acknowledged that there were downside risks to the canadian economy. but, with the labour market in a very solid situation, we felt that the downside risk was not sufficient to warrant lower interest rates. a lot has happened in the past six weeks. in particular, the global economy will, at the very least, be significantly disrupted by covid - 19 in the first half of the year. it is possible that the global economy will snap back quickly after health professionals have managed the situation and conditions have returned to normal. however, the outbreak and its effects could be more persistent. consumer and business confidence could be set back for a longer period of time, causing economic growth to slow more persistently. this could include longer - term layoffs, for example. at this point, we simply do not know. of course, the coronavirus is not the only issue on the table. just last week, we received the detailed economic report on the fourth quarter of 2019 from statistics canada. as expected, this report shows that the economy slowed significantly in late 2019. some of this was due to special factors, such as an early winter that left some crops to rot in the fields, the canadian national railway strike, the shutdown of the general motors plant in oshawa and so on. still, economic growth in the fourth quarter was lower than 1 percent when you take out the effect of the special factors. this is because some of the slowdown was more structural — exports remained weak, business investment declined and the recovery in housing moderated. the one positive was consumer spending, which remained solid even while the savings rate went up further. consumer confidence did rebound in january, as we had hoped. in short, the solid labour market we discussed earlier is giving the economy a measure of resilience