The Composite State of the Economy Index for May 2018 increases by 0.3 percent: The rate of expansion in recent months has been stable at a rate similar to that of 2017
The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for May 2018 increased
by 0.3 percent, similar to its rate of growth in recent months. The Index was positively impacted by increases in imports of manufacturing inputs and of consumer goods in May and by the April increase in the Industrial Production index. In contrast, the decline in goods exports in May and the decline in the indices of retail trade revenue and of services revenue in April moderated the Index’s rate of growth. This month, there was essentially no revision to the Index’s readings 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 |
|
May 2018 |
|
0.25 |
|
April 2018 |
0.39 |
0.35 |
|
March 2018 |
0.33 |
0.30 |
|
February 2018 |
0.36 |
0.30 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
|
|
May 2018 |
April 2018 |
March 2018 |
February 2018 |
|
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
|
2.2 |
0.5 |
-4.2 |
|
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration) |
|
-2.6 |
2.1 |
-0.7 |
|
Retail Trade Revenue Index |
|
-1.8 |
1.3 |
-0.1 |
|
Imports of consumer goods1 |
0.6 |
-1.7 |
-4.2 |
18.5 |
|
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1 |
2.1 |
2.9 |
-7.5 |
20.5 |
|
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1 |
-9.4 |
2.3 |
-2.8 |
-0.5 |
|
Services exports (excluding transportation) 1 |
|
-3.0 |
-1.2 |
-3.5 |
|
Number of employee posts in the private sector |
|
|
-0.1 |
0.1 |
|
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector2 |
3.8 |
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