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Data, Figures & Graphs
Business sector debt declined by about 1.6 percent to around NIS 776 billion in June. Households' housing debt increased by about NIS 1 billion (0.3 percent), to about NIS 279 billion at the end of the month.
The business sector's outstanding debt
· The total outstanding debt of the business sector declined by about NIS 12 billion (1.6 percent) in June, to about NIS 776 billion. The decline derived primarily from net repayment of debt totaling about NIS 8 billion—mainly on loans from banks (about NIS 6 billion) and from the strengthening of the shekel against the dollar, which lowered the shekel value of foreign currency-denominated debt. In the first half of 2013, net repayment of debt by the business sector to the banks totaled about NIS 11.6 billion (2.9 percent), continuing the decline of NIS 5.3 billion in 2012 (1.3 percent).
· In July, the business sector (excluding banks and insurance companies) issued about NIS 1.8 billion of bonds, all of which were tradable bonds. This was slightly lower than the monthly average of bond issuances since the beginning of the year, which is about NIS 2.5 billion.
Households' debt
· Households' outstanding debt in June was about NIS 397 billion. The balance of housing debt, which is included in the total household debt, increased by about NIS 1 billion (0.3 percent), and was about NIS 279 billion at the end of June.
· New mortgages taken out in July totaled about NIS 5 billion, higher than the monthly average since the beginning of the year, which is about NIS 4.4 billion.
The cost of the debt
· In the CPI-indexed track, the spread between interest rates on new bank credit granted and interest on deposits increased by 0.27 percentage points in June, due to a decline in the interest rate on deposits.
· In June, the spread between the yield on indexed corporate bonds—measured by the Tel-Bond 60 Index—and average yields on indexed government bonds was 1.11 percentage points, lower than the spread in May, which was 1.25 percentage points. Since July 2012, the spread has narrowed by about 1.8 percentage points.
· In July, the average interest rate on new unindexed mortgages increased by about 0.03 percentage points. The average interest rate on new CPI-indexed mortgages was almost unchanged compared with the previous month, at 1.95 percent.
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