Israel’s foreign exchange reserves reached 213.77 billion U.S. dollars at the end of March, according to figures issued by Israel’s central bank on Sunday.
This represents an increase of 6.95 billion dollars compared to the reserves at the end of February and an all-time record, overtaking the reserve figure of 212.99 billion dollars recorded in December 2021.
The bank said that the current total reserves account for 42.2 percent of Israeli gross domestic product, up from 40.8 percent recorded in February.
In October 2023, after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Bank of Israel sold 8.2 billion dollars as part of an emergency plan aimed at curbing the weakening of the shekel, reducing the reserves to 191.24 billion dollars.
Since then there has been a gradual monthly increase in the reserves.
The latest increase was primarily driven by the government’s foreign exchange operations totaling about 4.86 billion dollars, most of which was raised in the international bond offering carried out by Israel’s Finance Ministry in early March. ■
