*  *  *  This meeting is being held on the occasion of the departure of the Bank of Israel delegation to the annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, which will discuss global economic developments. I will therefore start with a description of the situation in that area.
The global economy is experiencing a slowdown, which was a surprise mainly in the US, for which the forecasts of growth have been reduced by more than 1.5 percentage points since March. The data for the first quarter were revised downwards, so that in total the US economy grew by less than one percent in the first half of the year.