The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for November 2016 increased by 0.3 percent, slightly higher than previous months’ readings, but similar to its rate of growth since the beginning of the year. The rate of increase since the beginning of the year remains higher than during 2015.  There was a marked increase in the index of goods exports in November, which led the increase in the overall index. Increases in imports of manufacturing inputs and in the job vacancy rate in November also contributed to the increase in the overall index, as did the increase in the number of employee posts in September. The retail trade and services revenue indices declined in October, as did the Industrial Production Index, which moderated the increase in the overall index.

 

Revisions in the retail trade revenue and job vacancy data led to an upward revision of Composite Index figures 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

November

 

0.34

October

0.10

0.19

September

0.24

0.27

August

0.25

0.29

 

 Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months

(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)

 

November 2016

October 2016

September 2016

August  2016

Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)

 

-1.7 

 -2.4

 2.8

Services Revenue Index (excluding education, and public administration)

 

 -1.2

1.6 

 -1.3

Retail Trade Revenue Index

 

 -1.8

 1.1

-3.2

Imports of consumer goods1

-2.8

2.4

8.4

-3.8

Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1

0.4

-0.7

-0.9

-2.8

Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1

7.7

-3.4

1.5

-4.2

Services exports (excluding transportation) 1

 

 

 0.1

 2.2

Number of employee posts in the private sector

 

 

0.4 

 0.0

Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector2

3.8

3.7

3.6

4.0

Building starts3

 

 

-1.1

 

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 Since the Central Bureau of Statistics stopped publishing monthly figures on building starts, beginning in July 2016 the method of calculation of the building starts component of the Index was changed. The component is calculated at a quarterly frequency, and the change (seasonally adjusted, in percent) is attributed to the last month of the quarter for which the figure is published.  The last figure published is for the second quarter (relating to June), and it shows an increase of 10.3 percent. The other months in the quarter are missing values for which the variable value is estimated in the model.

 

For additional data and explanations please click here.

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

 

 

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