Leading financial magazine Global Finance named Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer among the top six Worlds Best Central Bankers for the year 2010.

Open gallery view Stanley Fischer Credit: Daniel Bar-On

The "Central Banker Report Card" graded heads of central banks from 30 countries around the world on an A to F scale for success.

Among the criteria taken into account were inflation control, economic growth goals, currency stability and interest rate management, as well as subjective criteria, such as "determination to stand up to political interference," publisher of the Global Finance magazine was quoted as saying in the article.

Otherfigures mentioned in the list were Jean-Claude Trichet from the European Union, Glenn Stevens from Australia, Zeti Akhtar Aziz from Malaysia, Lee Seongtae from South Korea, Fai-Nan Perng from Taiwan, and Durmus Yilmaz from Turkey.

Fischer was praised after Israel weathered the global financial crisis far better than many other Western countries.

Fischer said Israel underwent nothing worse than an economic slowdown. He said the country got through the global crisis with relative ease partly because it was already in good shape when the crisis began, with a sound fiscal policy and a balanced budget. In addition, Israel's public debt was on the decline compared with GDP, and it had a relatively low level of household debt.

Earlier this month, Fischer said at a World Jewish Congress board of governors meeting in Jerusalem that a peace deal with the Palestinians could hike up Israel's gross domestic product by between 5% and 6%.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met with U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday, has previously said peace was not necessarily linked to Israel's economic growth.

