The Composite State of the Economy Index for November 2018 increased by 0.3 percent

The Composite State of the Economy Index for November 2018 increased by 0.3 percent: The economy’s average rate of expansion is similar to the long-term growth rate

The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for November 2018 increased by approximately 0.3 percent, attesting to continued solid expansion of the economy. The Index was positively impacted by the increase in consumer goods imports and by the increase in the import of inputs in November, as well as by increases in industrial production, in retail trade revenue, and in services revenue in October. In contrast, the declines in goods exports and in the job vacancy rate in November moderated the Index’s rate of growth this month. The Index reading for September was revised downward by approximately 0.12 percentage points, due in part to the publication of building starts data for that month indicating a decline.  In contrast, the index for October was revised slightly upward (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 2018		0.32
October 2018	0.26	0.30
September 2018	0.33	0.21
August 2018	0.33	0.31

 

 

 Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months

(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)

	November 2018	October 2018	September 2018	August 2018
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)		0.3	-3.6	3.4
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration)		0.5	-0.5	2.4
Retail Trade Revenue Index		1.0	-0.3	0.0
Imports of consumer goods1	5.1	0.7	-3.2	2.6
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1	4.2	-0.1	3.0	1.0
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1	-5.7	1.4	-6.1	5.7
Services exports (excluding transportation) 1			-5.5	0.5
Number of employee posts in the private sector			-0.3	0.1
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector2	3.7	3.8	3.8	3.7
Building starts3			-1.6

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. The most recent data is for June, at 4.2 percent.

 

For additional data and explanations please click here.

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

 

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