The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for August 2017 increased by 0.3 percent, slightly more than previous months (about 0.2 percent). The increase in the Index indicates continued expansion of economic activity at a quite stable pace since the beginning of the year. The Index was positively affected in August mainly by an increase in goods exports and by increases in the import of inputs and in the job vacancy rate. In contrast, the Industrial Production index and the retail trade revenue index for July moderated the increase of the Index (Table 2).
The Composite Index figures for recent months were revised slightly downward (Table 1), due to slight downward revisions in some of the Index components.
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 |
|
0.31 |
|
July |
0.24 |
0.22 |
|
June |
0.28 |
0.25 |
|
May |
0.21 |
0.18 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
|
|
August 2017 |
July 2017 |
June 2017 |
May 2017 |
|
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
|
-2.2 |
1.4 |
-4.0 |
|
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration) |
|
-0.1 |
2.1 |
-1.4 |
|
Retail Trade Revenue Index |
|
-0.7 |
1.7 |
-3.2 |
|
Imports of consumer goods1 |
-0.7 |
0.5 |
-0.3 |
-1.8 |
|
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1 |
0.4 |
0.2 |
-4.1 |
0.4 |
|
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1 |
7.7 |
-4.5 |
-1.2 |
0.2 |
|
Services exports (excluding transportation) 1 |
|
-0.5 |
2.8 |
-2.2 |
|
Number of employee posts in the private sector |
|
|
0.0 |
0.1 |
|
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector2 |
3.9 |
3.8 |
3.8 |
3.8 |
1 Foreign trade indices are quantitative (in contrast to CBS monthly foreign trade indices).
2 The job vacancy rate is included in the Index at its level, seasonally adjusted and smoothed.
For additional data and explanations please click here.
http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx