Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. Photo: Wikpedia.

JNS.org – A new report by international credit ratings agency Moody’s praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon for the economic policies they have been leading in the Jewish state.

Moody’s had affirmed Israel’s A1 credit rating last September, assessing the country’s economic outlook as stable. In the new report, issued Thursday, Moody’s economists examined data on Israel’s debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, figures that were released last week by Kahlon and outgoing Finance Ministry Accountant General Michal Abadi-Boiangiu. The ratio reached an all-time low of 62.1 percent in 2016, an accumulated 9-percentage-point drop from Israel’s debt-to-GDP ratio in 2009, amounting to around 100 billion shekels (more than $26 billion).

According to the Moody’s report, Israel is one of the only countries in the world whose debt-to-GDP ratio has dropped since the 2009 global financial crisis. The report also stressed that security incidences have historically had a marginally low influence on the Israeli economy, state budget and government deficit.