The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index increased by 0.4 percent in June 2015, slightly higher than its rate of growth in recent months. The Composite Index for June was positively influenced by increases in the import of consumer goods, the import of manufacturing inputs, and an increase in the job vacancy rate for May. The increase in trade revenue in May also contributed to the increase in the Index. The growth rate was moderated this month by a decline in goods exports, and by declines in the industrial production index and the services revenue index for May. There were no major revisions in the Index’s rate of increase for 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
June
 
0.41
May
0.29
0.30
April
0.22
0.21
March
0.37
0.37
 
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
 
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March
2015
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)
 
-1.4
-4.9
2.5
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration)
 
-2.4
1.5
-2.1
Trade Revenue Index
 
1.0
-0.9
1.8
Imports of consumer goods3
3.5
0.9
-4.7
12.1
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3
6.5
-4.5
-2.0
4.8
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3
-4.8
2.4
-5.3
-3.9
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3
0.5
0.1
-1.9
-4.1
Number of employee posts in the private sector
 
 
-0.1
0.4
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector1
3.31
3.11
2.85
3.04
Building starts2
 
 
3.2
-0.5
1 The rate of job vacancies at its actual level, seasonally adjusted.
2 Six-month moving average.
3 Foreign trade indices are quantitative (in contrast to CBS monthly foreign trade indices).
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