The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index increased by 0.2 percent in November 2015, similar to its recent pace. The increase in the Composite Index derived primarily from increases in goods exports and in the job vacancy rate. In contrast, the decline in the Industrial Production index for October and the decline in the import indices for November were notable among the factors that moderated the rate of growth. The Index for October was revised slightly downward since the actual figures were weaker than the first estimate for industrial production and for services exports for that month[1] (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 |
November |
0.16 | |
October |
0.29 |
0.22 |
September |
0.13 |
0.08 |
August |
0.31 |
0.27 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
Nov. 2015 |
Oct. 2015 |
Sept. 2015 |
August 2015 | |
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
-1.2 |
-3.5 |
1.7 | |
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration) |
1.3 |
-0.7 |
1.4 | |
Trade Revenue Index |
0.6 |
-0.6 |
1.5 | |
Imports of consumer goods3 |
-5.2 |
11.0 |
-8.5 |
6.0 |
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3 |
-3.7 |
4.8 |
-3.5 |
1.4 |
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3 |
4.3 |
3.7 |
-6.5 |
-2.2 |
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3 |
-0.1 |
-1.0 |
-3.5 |
-3.3 |
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 sector1 |
3.33 |
3.22 |
3.48 |
3.36 |
Building starts2 |
-3.9 |
-1.1 |
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).
For additional data and explanations please click here.
[1] As part of the calculation of the Composite Index, estimates are taken for index components that are published by the Central Bureau of Statistics with a one-month lag. More details appear at the link provided on the next page.