The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for January 2017 increased by 0.2 percent, after increasing at a higher rate at the end of 2016. The Composite Index was positively affected this month by an increase in the import of inputs and an increase in the job vacancy rate. In contrast, the import of consumer goods, which increases sharply at the end of 2016 due to the exceptional increase in vehicle purchases, declined sharply and returned to its normal level, thereby contributing to the moderation of the increase in the Composite Index.   The increase in the Index was also moderated in January by the decline in the Industrial Production Index and in the trade and services revenue indices for December.

 

Index readings for October and November were revised upward due to the positive influence of business sector growth figures, while the index for December was revised downward due to the negative influence of the manufacturing and revenue indices for December, which were 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

January

 

0.23

December

0.45

0.35

November

0.36

0.48

October

0.30

0.42

 

  

 
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)

 

January 2017

December 2016

November 2016

October 2016

Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)

 

-0.4

4.5

-1.6 

Services Revenue Index (excluding education, and public administration)

 

-1.1

1.2

 -0.9

Retail Trade Revenue Index

 

-2.2

4.9

 -2.1

Imports of consumer goods1

- 27.8

26.4

-3.0

1.9

Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1

3.0

-2.1

0.3

-1.1

Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1

0.1

0.3

9.6

0.1

Services exports (excluding transportation) 1

 

 

-1.8

2.6

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 sector2

3.8

3.7

3.8

3.7

Building starts3

 

 

 

 

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.

3 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.

 

For additional data and explanations please click here.

http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx


Monthly data (part A) and percent changes (part B)


State of the Economy Index- Long term data


State of the Economy Index- Diagrams ​

 

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