The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for February 2017 increased by 0.3 percent, similar to the average during 2016. The Composite Index was positively affected this month by an increase in the import of consumer goods and in the import of inputs in February, and by the trade and services revenue indices for January. In contrast, the increase in the Index was moderated in February by the decline goods exports and the decline in the job vacancy rate.
Index readings for previous months were revised upward due to the positive influence of data published this month. (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 |
|
0.31 |
|
January |
0.23 |
0.32 |
|
December |
0.35 |
0.42 |
|
November |
0.48 |
0.53 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months1
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
|
|
February 2017 |
January 2017 |
December 2016 |
November 2016 |
|
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
|
0.0 |
0.4 |
4.3 |
|
Services Revenue Index (excluding education, and public administration) |
|
0.9 |
-1.3 |
1.1 |
|
Retail Trade Revenue Index |
|
0.9 |
-1.4 |
4.8 |
|
Imports of consumer goods2 |
5.7 |
- 26.5 |
24.1 |
-2.2 |
|
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)2 |
0.6 |
3.2 |
-1.3 |
0.4 |
|
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 2 |
-9.6 |
-1.3 |
0.7 |
8.9 |
|
Services exports (excluding transportation) 2 |
|
|
-4.1 |
0.2 |
|
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 sector3 |
3.6 |
3.8 |
3.7 |
3.8 |
1 Since the Central Bureau of Statistics stopped publishing monthly figures on building starts, beginning in July 2016 the method of calculation of the building starts component of the Index was changed. The component is calculated at a quarterly frequency, and the change (seasonally adjusted, in percent) is attributed to the last month of the quarter for which the figure is published. The last figure published is for the third quarter of 2016 (attributed to September), and shows a decline of 1 percent. The other months in the quarter are missing values for which the variable value is estimated in the model.
2 Foreign trade indices are quantitative (in contrast to CBS monthly foreign trade indices).
3 The job vacancy rate is included in the Index at its level, seasonally adjusted and smoothed.
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