The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index increased by 0.3 percent in August 2015, similar to its average rate of growth in recent months. The Composite Index for August was positively influenced by increases in the imports of consumer products and inputs, and by the increase in the job vacancy rate in August. The increase in building starts in June also contributed positively to the increase in the Composite Index.  In contrast, the decline in goods and services exports, following increases in the previous month, as well as the decline in the trade revenue and services indices and in the industrial production index for July moderated the increase in the Index. This month there were no significant revisions to the index’s growth in previous months (Table 1). 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
August
 
0.29
July
0.29
0.25
June
0.40
0.37
May
0.23
0.21
 
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
 
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)
 
-3.4
3.7
-1.1
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration)
 
-0.5
2.4
-1.6
Trade Revenue Index
 
-0.7
1.2
1.0
Imports of consumer goods3
6.4
-0.6
4.0
1.1
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3
1.7
0.0
6.8
-5.2
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3
-3.5
6.1
-2.2
-0.3
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3
-1.4
2.6
-2.3
5.2
Number of employee posts in the private sector
 
 
0.2
0.0
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector1
3.26
3.24
3.35
3.14
Building starts2
 
 
2.0
-0.1
1 The rate of job vacancies at its actual level, seasonally adjusted.
2 Six-month moving average.
3 Foreign trade indices are quantitative (in contrast to CBS monthly foreign trade indices).
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