Business in Brief

Dollar tops NIS 4.2, up 4.2% last week

The Bank of Israel's announcement last week that it would continue purchasing $100 million a day in foreign currency weakened the shekel; for the week the dollar rose 4.2% against the Israeli currency. On Friday the dollar rose 1.2% to a representative rate of NIS 4.196, and in later interbank trading it extended gains to NIS 4.218. The dollar has climbed 2.3% since Stanley Fischer's announcement. The euro also rose against the shekel, up 0.9% on Friday to a representative rate of NIS 5.692. Bank Hapoalim analysts expect the shekel to be influenced in the short term mostly by what happens to the dollar in the world market. Nevertheless, Hapoalim economists wrote in their weekly survey that a number of factors are contributing to a weaker shekel, such as lower interest rates here and the central bank's foreign-currency purchases. (Yuval Maoz)

You still have to eat: Agriculture exports drop 3.6%

Israeli agricultural exports fell only 3.6% to $308 million in the first two months of 2009, compared with the same period a year earlier. This was a relatively small drop as total Israeli exports fell by more than 30% in the two months. It seems that while people may need to buy diamonds, they still have to eat. Total exports for the period were almost $6 billion. But this was not all good news for farmers. While the total dollar amount may not have fallen much, the numbers betrayed a much greater amount of produce at lower prices. Total imports fell 34.5% for the period to $6.72 billion. (Amiram Cohen)

Off Ha'emek open for bidding

The liquidator of the Off Ha'emek poultry slaughterhouse published a tender for bids to buy the plant, with a minimum bid of NIS 10 million - the amount of the offer made by Rami Levy and rejected. Preference will be given to bidders willing to continue operations and retain the employees, and not necessarily to the highest bidder if all they want is the land for real estate development. (Amiram Cohen)