The Composite State of the Economy Index for May 2019 increases by 0.1 percent

The Composite State of the Economy Index for May 2019 increases by 0.1 percent: The expansion of activity continues, with moderation in May

​The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for May increased by 0.13 percent. The Index’s average rate of growth from the beginning of the year is similar to its average pace for 2018, but the pace of expansion moderated in May due to declines in consumer goods imports and in exports, and because of a decline in building starts in March. The moderation may reflect fluctuations in data: the decline in consumer goods imports occurred, among other things, because of vehicle purchases being brought forward to the first quarter (in view of the expected change in the green taxation regulations), and, based on past experience, building starts data may be revised upward. The Index was positively impacted by increases in the industrial production index and in revenue indices for April. The Index reading for recent months was revised slightly downward (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 2019		0.13
April 2019	0.28	0.23
March 2019	0.27	0.25
February 2019	0.35	0.33

 

 

Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months¹

(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)

	May 2019	April 2019	March 2019	February 2019
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)		2.9	1.0	0.5
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration)		1.5	-1.1	0.6
Retail Trade Revenue Index		1.6	-0.6	0.1
Imports of consumer goods1	-10.2	-5.4	4.0	3.2
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1	-5.2	4.1	-3.2	0.9
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1	-8.1	-8.6	2.8	10.3
Services exports (excluding transportation) 1			-1.7	0.5
Number of employee posts in the private sector			-0.2	-0.3
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector2	3.6	3.6	3.6	3.5
			-15.9

¹ 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.

² Foreign trade indices are quantitative (in contrast to CBS monthly foreign trade indices). Beginning from January 14, 2018, import data generated by the CBS are based on a new system. The Composite Index model has a component that deals with outlier observations.

³ The job vacancy rate is included in the Index at its level, seasonally adjusted and smoothed.

 

 

 

For additional data and explanations please click here.

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

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