The shekel has strengthened against the leading currencies at the beginning of this week's trading on the foreign exchange market. The shekel-dollar rate declined by 0.33% in comparison to Friday's representative rate, at NIS 3.96/$. The shekel-euro rate declined by 0.51%, at NIS 5.5463/€.



According to Barclays Capital, the economic crisis in Israel is almost over, and the Israeli economy should begin to grow again in 2010. The bank believes that the Bank of Israel will start to tighten monetary policy by raising interest rates and ceasing purchases of bonds and foreign currency.