This is a very large increase, particularly for an economy that is growing at a rate of three percent. A few years ago, the government made decisions limiting the rate of year-over-year growth in expenditure, and the limitation for 2013 according to this law is growth of about 5 percent in expenditure. It will therefore be necessary to reduce planned expenses by 5 percent.
We must remember that even if the government does this, there will still be a significant increase in government expenditure for 2013. In addition, in order to meet the deficit target, we believe that it will be necessary to increase receipts by about NIS 6 billion, or about 0.6 percent of GDP.