Converting offices to apartments, promoting cannabis exports and reducing bureaucracy are some of the things Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman has planned for the coming years. In preparation for passing a state budget, he presented to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett a long list of structural changes that will be part of the economic plan for the years 2021-2022.
Israel has not had a state budget since mid-2018 due to political gridlock, and Liberman has stressed that passing a budget by November is his top priority. The plan includes many of the points that he has repeated numerous times since taking office last month, as well as several surprises.
According to the Finance Ministry, the program is based on three main principles: encouraging employment and investing in human capital; investment in transportation, housing, energy and technology infrastructures; and promoting growth in the private and government sectors, such as handling regulation, competitiveness, upgrading public services, streamlining the public sector and more.
Here are the main points of the plan:
Reducing the cost of living by easing import regulations and honoring foreign certifications so that a product that complies with European regulations and is marketed in Europe can be sold in Israel without further bureaucracy;
Making the banking system more open, transparent and competitive;
Improving the job market, including improvements to the vocational-training system; the government has set a target of increasing hi-tech jobs from 10% to 15% of the entire workforce;
Promoting the growth of Israel’s hi-tech industry and technological leadership by approving a national AI program, simplifying and removing bureaucratic barriers, participating in the EU’s R&D program and approving a plan to increase transfer of knowledge from academia to industry;
Converting tens of millions of square meters of unused office space into residences, creating new housing options new employment centers;
Reducing regulation and bureaucracy by establishing a new regulatory authority that would work to eliminate “problematic” regulations and set guidelines for smart governance;
Reducing the costs and burdens of obtaining business licensing in different fields;
Streamlining the licensing process in the construction industry;
Promoting digitization of government services and information, including a zero-paper reform that would eliminate the need for government bodies to communicate by postal mail, saving taxpayers up to NIS 200 million per year;
Encouraging the development of Israel’s medical-cannabis industry by removing barriers to export;
Improving Israel’s prison system with more modern facilities, as well as providing for greater possibilities of release by electronic restraint;
Adopting a new approach to fire regulations in businesses, schools and other buildings;
Streamlining the legal system by using technology and replacing thousands of suits between insurance companies and leasing companies with a mandatory arbitration procedure; today, the average civil procedure in Israel lasts 1,000 days and costs about 25% of the value of a claim;
Encouraging a switch to green energy by creating new green facilities, removing regulatory barriers and preparing and implementing a new energy infrastructure;
Improving public transportation by reducing regulation of public and private transportation options, streamlining the use of public transportation routes, highways and improving traffic signs; approvals for certain public-private partnership roads will also be pushed through;
Approving the massive NIS 150 billion metro project in the center of the country to improve the transportation infrastructure.