Corona Commission MK Ayelet Shaked and other participants asked not to disable construction and industry • Finance Director: "There will be cuts in many places, it will be like a mini-budget"

Treasury Director General Shai Babad spoke on Sunday at a premiere meeting of the Corona Committee on the worsening of closure in troubled areas. MK Ofer Shelah, chairman of the committee, responded that "in this crisis the economic issue is at least equally important to the health issue. The question is whether the economic patient will not die before the corona patient."

Photo: Knesset spokeswoman Adina Wallman

Babad added: "We have been on the order of a month since the Corona spread in Israel, and drastic steps have not been taken since the establishment of the state. My job as finance director is for the economy to function. I don't underestimate retail, but that's not what will bring down the economy. More than 90% are in the US and not fired. "

According to BABD, if the partial shutdown now lasts for five weeks, there will be a 5% - NIS 75-70 billion damage to GDP. If it is a total downtime, we will hit NIS 18 - 240 billion. "

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Babad elaborated on the planned measures, saying that "the state has an excellent social security network for employees. In relation to the self-employed, who are not entitled to unemployment benefits, we have created a tool that also answers them within the same safety net in the form of a grant until after Passover (end of April). There will be a number of responses: a grant according to the crisis victims criteria; Cash flow - Loans have been set up under very favorable conditions; Rejection of payments and regulatory benefits, VAT, municipal taxes, water (in some cases payments have been canceled and not just postponed), and this is another acceleration of the economy. "

Babad has been given overwhelming support by MK Ayelet Shaked: "The Chief Executive Officer of the Treasury at Avad deserves more or less the Israel Prize. In recent weeks, when the Ministry of Health has more or less tried to eliminate the economy, Shai has been at the forefront. In no country have they paralyzed the economy, Neither in Germany nor Italy. Another senseless decision the Ministry of Health is pushing: to paralyze the construction industry. I appeal to the Treasury: fight as much as possible. "