The director-general of Israel's Finance Ministry said this morning the ministry would lower its 2002 growth estimate of 4 per cent after months of defending the forecast.
"An updated forecast will be issued at the end of December or the beginning of January along with a government decision on cuts of more than three billion shekels for the 2002 budget," Mr Ohad Marani said at a business conference in Tel Aviv.
"The budget deficit will also be higher than the targeted 2.4 per cent [of gross domestic product] but will be lower than if we did not take any steps at all," he said.
He said 2002 would be the greatest year of uncertainty that Israel had seen in recent years.