Israel weathered the global financial crisis 'relatively well' and ended 2009 with modest economic growth and declining unemployment, the central bank said on Wednesday. The Bank of Israel report for 2009 said Israel's 'conservative and closely supervised banking system' and the absence of mortgage-backed assets in its capital markets cushioned it from the worst of the storm. 'The crisis had a more moderate effect on Israel's economy than on almost all other advanced economies, the bank's governor, Stanley Fischer, wrote in a letter accompanying the report. It logged overall growth of 0.7 percent in Gross Domestic Product during 2009 but noted that while the first half of the year saw a 1.5 percent decline, there was 3.3 percent growth in the second half. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasts between three and 3.5 percent growth for Israel in 2010. The Bank of Israel GDP figure for 2009 exceeded the OECD's estimate of 0.5 percent. The bank report said unemployment peaked at 7.9 percent in mid-2009 but declined to 7.3 percent by the end of the year. 