dollar. there are additional reasons for the strength of the shekel. the current account surplus grew this year, due to transitory reasons related to the crisis — the marked contraction in the quantity of imports and a decline in energy prices. the reasons that led to the strength of the shekel are mostly good ones — years of current account surplus, and the capital flows into the economy are extensive investments by the leading technology companies in the world in the israeli economy, 5 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches and large institutional investors around the world increased the scope of their holdings in israeli government bonds due to israel joining the wgbi index. in addition, the coronavirus adversely impacted imports, while exports continued to grow, which combined with the effect of the balance of trade in recent years. excluding the item for tourism services, which due to the circumstances of the crisis particularly adversely impacted it. export performance throughout the crisis has been notably good, relative to private consumption and investments, and especially in view of the decline in world trade. despite the good cumulative performance of exports to date, a rapid appreciation is liable to negatively impact performance of exports and subsequently of industries that produce import substitutes, and to weigh on the economy ’ s recovery from the crisis. this concern becomes stronger in view of the state of world trade and the growth in the percentage of companies that are reporting a shortage in orders for imports. foreign exchange purchases by the bank of israel, which were $ 17 billion through november of this year, acted against the foreign currency flows noted above, moderated the pace of appreciation, so that the exchange rate has not markedly strengthened beyond what is in line with the dynamic window derived from fundamental forces. under the current circumstance, the level of foreign exchange reserves is not a limitation on the policy of purchasing foreign exchange. the bank of israel intends to continue the policy in the foreign exchange market in 2021 as well and to purchase foreign exchange at quantities required in order to prevent the continued appreciation of the shekel beyond what is derived from the economy ’ s fundamental data. the foreign exchange purchase policy is one pillar in the bank of israel ’ s monetary policy, and joins a broad set of steps taken in the crisis. these include ensuring a low interest rate, government and corporate bond purchases, and the special program to increase the supply of credit to small businesses and the deferral of loans. all these together provide broad support to the business sector with all its facets and we will continue to do so to the

reduce that uncertainty and the “ new normal ” that will be created in the labor market after the coronavirus event will contain as little as possible structural unemployment. further to this, i would like to shine the spotlight on the business owners, those who of course reflect the demand for workers. there are 2 real time surveys by the central bureau of statistics in august and october, in which businesses of various sizes were asked, “ how long can you continue activities if the current situation continues ”? the business owners estimate that should the limitations be expanded, such as the possibility of entering a third lockdown, the adverse impact they expect will increase. thus, for example, we can see that in august, 80 percent of large businesses claimed that they can exist more than half a year, while in october the figure declined to 54 percent. due to the second lockdown, business owners became more pessimistic regarding their ability to survive. 3 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches i will now expand on fiscal policy, the government debt, the importance of the 2021 budget and the utilization of the crisis to increase the level of productivity and to develop the financial world. i want to go back and spend some time on the issue of the deficit and the debt to gdp ratio, and the importance of keeping them at a controllable level. the fact is that the israeli economy went into the crisis with the deficit and the debt to gdp ratio relatively low. now as well these figures are low in international comparison, which is an important asset for israel ’ s economy. the reason for this is that financial markets and international institutions have confidence in the israeli economy, as rating agency s & p noted when it confirmed israel ’ s credit rating, and as imf economists wrote in their recent survey. however, the decline the debt to gdp ratio in the past 20 years derived not only from fiscal restraint steps but also from other factors that there is no guarantee will be on our side in the future when we want to lower the debt to gdp ratio. these factors include the fact that over those years, the gdp deflator increased faster than the cpi used to calculate the debt, export prices increased more than import prices, and there was a big redemption of public debt to the government. the combination of these factors helped “ pull ” the debt to gdp ratio downward, and as they are not permanent, they may even balance upward over the long term. however, it is very important to understand that the rating is not a