The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for March 2016 increased by 0.2 percent.  Since the beginning of the year, the rate of growth of the index is similar to its rate of increase in 2015, following a temporary acceleration in the fourth quarter. The Composite Index was positively impacted this month primarily by an increase in the industrial production index and in the retail trade revenue index in February, as well as increases in consumer goods imports in March. The declines in goods exports and in the import of inputs in March were the main factors moderating the increase of the Index.

 
This month there were no significant revisions in the growth rate of the Index in 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
March
 
0.16
February
0.25
0.24
January
0.20
0.18
December
0.27
0.30
 
  
 
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
 
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)
 
0.5
-4.1
-1.5
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration)
 
-2.3
0.1
0.1
Retail Trade Revenue Index
 
0.5
-1.4
0.8
Imports of consumer goods3
0.6
-0.3
-1.6
5.2
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3
-6.2
14.6
-9.5
6.3
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3
-5.5
-5.1
0.8
-1.8
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3
2.2
-6.6
4.6
0.0
Number of employee posts in the private sector
 
 
-0.5
0.1
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector1
3.6
3.6
3.4
3.7
Building starts2
 
 
-3.1
-1.7
 
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).
 
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