Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said the government plans to speed up the construction of 50,000 housing units over the next year and a half to stem the sharp rise in real estate prices. House prices have jumped some 18 percent the past year and 40 percent in the past two years, contributing to an acceleration of inflation and prompting the Bank of Israel to raise short-term interest rates to slow price rises through higher mortgage loan rates. Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, who has raised the central bank's benchmark rate by two percentage points to 2.5 percent since August 2009, has long called on the government to allocate more land for housing supply. Netanyahu in November announced plans to implement tax breaks and other measures in a bid to lower housing prices.
