Stanley Fischer: Overcoming poverty in Israel Address by Professor Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Bank of Israel, at the Globes Israel Business Conference, Tel Aviv, 5 December 2005. *  *  *  Israel's economy is experiencing fairly rapid growth, an annual rate of 4.8 percent from the third quarter of 2003 to the third quarter of 2005.
The Reserve Bank, under Dr. Jha, was an influential force in shaping these initiatives. The overall scarcity situation renewed the urgency for focusing public policy towards poverty reduction. This led to several path breaking policies, including the nationalization of fourteen major commercial banks in 1969 on Dr. Jha’s watch.