The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for September 2017 increased by 0.3 percent, similar to its rate of increase in August and slightly above its pace in previous months (about 0.2 percent). The increase in the Index indicates continued expansion of economic activity at a particularly stable pace since the beginning of the year. The Index was positively impacted this month mainly by the increase in imports of consumer goods and of manufacturing inputs in September and by increases in the trade and service revenue indices in August. In contrast, the decline in goods exports in September and the decline in industrial production in August moderated the Index’s rate of increase (Table 2).
The Composite Index figures for the recent months were not markedly revised (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 |
|
September |
|
0.27 |
|
August |
0.31 |
0.30 |
|
July |
0.22 |
0.21 |
|
June |
0.25 |
0.22 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
|
|
September 2017 |
August 2017 |
July 2017 |
June 2017 |
|
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
|
-0.4 |
-2.5 |
1.6 |
|
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration) |
|
1.1 |
0.6 |
2.2 |
|
Retail Trade Revenue Index |
|
0.7 |
-0.6 |
1.8 |
|
Imports of consumer goods1 |
0.7 |
-0.9 |
0.2 |
-0.2 |
|
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1 |
0.8 |
0.8 |
-0.5 |
-4.7 |
|
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1 |
-6.7 |
7.2 |
-4.9 |
-1.2 |
|
Services exports (excluding transportation) 1 |
|
|
-0.5 |
2.8 |
|
Number of employee posts in the private sector |
|
|
0.0 |
0.0 |
|
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector2 |
3.8 |
3.8 |
3.8 |
3.8 |
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.
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http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx