The Composite State of the Economy Index for April 2016 increases by 0.1 percent

The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for April 2016 increased by 0.1 percent. Since the beginning of the year, the rate of growth of the index is lower than its rate of increase in 2015.  Following the publication of business output figures for the first quarter of 2016, the trend line of the Composite Index, reflecting the long-term growth rate, was revised downward. The index readings for January and February[1] were therefore also revised downward (Table 1). The Composite Index reading for this month was also negatively impacted by the downward revision in the trend line, and by the declines in goods exports and the import of inputs.  In contrast, the index was positively impacted primarily by increases in the industrial production index and in the retail trade revenue index and the services index in March, as well as an increase in consumer goods imports in April.

 

Table 1 shows the revisions in the growth rate of the Index in previous months. Table 2 presents the development of components of the Index in the past few months.

 

Table 1: Revisions in the Composite Index

Revision	Previous data	New data
April		0.14
March	0.16	0.20
February	0.24	0.14
January	0.18	0.07

 

Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months

(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)

	April 2016	March 2016	February 2016	January 2016
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)		3.0	0.3	-4.0
Services Revenue Index (excluding education, and public administration)		3.2	-1.3	-0.7
Retail Trade Revenue Index		5.0	0.2	-1.2
Imports of consumer goods3	1.1	0.7	0.0	-1.4
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3	-2.4	-7.2	14.1	-9.4
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3	-1.7	-1.4	-9.5	0.6
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3	0.9	2.1	-6.6	4.6
Number of employee posts in the private sector			0.3	-0.6
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector1	3.6	3.6	3.7	3.4
Building starts2			-3.5	-3.1

¹ The rate of job vacancies at its actual level, seasonally adjusted and smoothed.

² Six-month moving average.

³ Foreign trade indices are quantitative (in contrast to CBS monthly foreign trade indices).

 

For additional data and explanations please click here.

http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx

 

 

 

[1] Quarterly data on the growth of business output are not available at the time of publication of the monthly Composite Index, but are included in it with a lag and have an effect on the trend line.