Distinguished JCC members and dear friends.
It's a great pleasure for me to be back here again. As noted, this is my fifth time coming to the JCC. Before I go on to the topic and talk about the current state and the way forward, I thought I'd do a little bit of looking back. I remember my first JCC talk back in March 2021 during COVID-19. It was a hybrid event, very cozy, with 12 people sitting and listening in, and about another 80 people online.
This year, it's a bit bittersweet. I always enjoy coming back here, but it will be my last JCC talk. It will be something that I will miss very much. So, thank you again very much for your kind welcome.
Part 1: Then (JCC March 2024) & Now (GDP Q4/2024 & 2024)
When I was here a year ago, I mentioned that I thought consumption was likely to continue to recover, expecting to see consumption growth of about 3%. As it turns out, consumption came in better than expected at 4.4%. We expected tourism to come back to about 34.5 million persons, but we closed last year with 35.5 million persons. Export value, which had a terrible year in 2023, was expected to rebound to about 2%, but it recovered nicely to 5.8%. The headline GDP number I gave you last year was expected to be in the range of 2.5 to 3%, and it came out at 2.5%. So, it was right at the very end, right at the very bottom of the range that we had expected.