The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index increased by 0.2 percent in February 2015, similar to its average growth in 2014. In previous months, the index rose more rapidly, reflecting to a large extent the recovery of the economy from Operation Protective Edge and the sharp increase in vehicle purchases that derived from changes in taxation.
The Index for February was positively impacted by an increase in building starts in December, an increase in trade revenue in January, and a continued increase in the job vacancy rate in February. The Index’s rate of increase in February was moderated by declines in import and export components and a decline in industrial production. There were no material changes in the pace of the index’s increase 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 |
February |
0.25 | |
January |
0.30 |
0.30 |
December |
0.49 |
0.49 |
November |
0.43 |
0.39 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
February 2015 |
January
2015 |
December
2014 |
November
2014 | |
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
-1.3 |
0.9 |
0.5 | |
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration) |
-1.5 |
3.7 |
-0.6 | |
Trade Revenue Index |
0.6 |
0.5 |
0.2 | |
Imports of consumer goods3 |
-3.5 |
-18.9 |
16.4 |
-0.3 |
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3 |
-5.2 |
-1.5 |
10.5 |
0.0 |
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3 |
-10.2 |
1.5 |
18.4 |
-4.8 |
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3 |
-0.8 |
-2.7 |
-6.0 |
0.7 |
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 |
3.19 |
2.99 |
3.09 |
2.97 |
Building starts2 |
1.5 |
-0.9 |
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).
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