by 0.3 percent. The average rate of increase in the first half of 2018 was the same as the average pace in 2017. The Index was positively impacted by increases in consumer goods imports and in goods exports in June, and by the increase in retail trade revenue and of services revenue in May. In contrast, the decline in imports of manufacturing inputs in June and the decline in the Industrial Production index in May moderated the Index’s rate of growth. The Index’s readings for previous months were revised slightly, so that they show a gradual acceleration since March (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 2018 |
|
0.35 |
|
May 2018 |
0.25 |
0.32 |
|
April 2018 |
0.35 |
0.26 |
|
March 2018 |
0.30 |
0.24 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
|
|
June 2018 |
May 2018 |
April 2018 |
March 2018 |
|
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
|
-2.8 |
1.7 |
0.4 |
|
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration) |
|
2.4 |
-1.9 |
2.1 |
|
Retail Trade Revenue Index |
|
2.0 |
-1.7 |
1.4 |
|
Imports of consumer goods1 |
0.2 |
0.4 |
-1.6 |
-3.5 |
|
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1 |
-2.6 |
2.8 |
2.8 |
-7.8 |
|
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1 |
3.9 |
-7.4 |
1.6 |
-2.7 |
|
Services exports (excluding transportation) 1 |
|
0.9 |
-2.5 |
-0.3 |
|
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 sector2 |
3.7 |
3.8 |
3.8 |
3.8 |
|
Building starts3 |
|
|
|
-11.1 |
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 As the Central Bureau of Statistics ceased publishing monthly data on building starts, since July 2016 the calculation of the building starts component in the Composite Index has changed. The Component is calculated at a quarterly frequency and the change (in percent, seasonally adjusted) is attributed to the last month of the quarter for which it is published.
For additional data and explanations please click here.
http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx