The Bank of Israel said on Wednesday it bought $1.98 billion of foreign currency in March to help lift its reserves to a record $185.7 billion. The reserves, which equate to 46% of Israel's gross domestic product, grew $635 million last month, the central bank said.
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Over the first three months of the year, the central bank has bought close to $14 billion of foreign currency, $4.9 billion coming in February.
The rise in reserves last month was partly offset by a revaluation that decreased them by some $1.7 billion.
The Bank of Israel has said it would buy as much as 85 billion shekels of government bonds.
As part of a plan to encourage credit to small businesses, the bank said it loaned another 3.1 billion shekels to the banking system last month to bring its loan total during the COVID-19 pandemic to 28.1 billion shekels.
