​The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index increased by 0.3 percent in January 2015. The Index was positively impacted on by an increase in trade and services revenue, in goods exports, and by a continued increase in the job vacancy rate. The Index’s rate of increase in January was moderated by declines in consumer goods imports, imports of manufacturing inputs, and services exports.  

The Index’s growth rate has been accelerated beginning in August 2014. The increase in the growth rate of business sector product[1] in the fourth quarter of 2014 led to an upward revision in the Index’s rate of increase in previous months (Table 1), and to the acceleration in the rate of increase due to the positive effect of the growth rate on the trend component of the Index. The acceleration in the growth rate and its positive effect on the trend component are not expected to persist, because the fourth quarter growth rate was atypical and largely reflected the economy’s recovery from Operation Protective Edge as well as the sharp increase in vehicle purchases that derived from taxation changes. 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
January
 
0.30
December
0.28
0.49
November
0.18
0.43
October
0.16
0.37
September
0.25
0.36
 
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
 
January
2015
December
2014
November
2014
October
2014
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)
 
-0.1
0.6
0.3
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration)
 
0.3
0.2
-1.2
Trade Revenue Index
 
3.0
-0.9
0.7
Imports of consumer goods3
-19.7
18.9
-0.6
1.4
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3
-2.2
10.5
-0.5
-1.9
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3
1.8
2.3
-0.9
2.4
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3
-2.8
3.0
0.0
0.7
Number of employee posts in the private sector
 
 
0.0
0.3
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector1
2.99
2.90
2.83
2.75
Building starts2
 
 
-0.2
-1.1
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.
 
[1] Quarterly business sector product growth data, which are not available at the time the monthly Composite Index data are published, are included with a lag, so that the rate of increase in the Index reflects, over time, the monthly growth rate of business sector product.