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The Bank of Israel's Composite State-of-the-Economy Index for March increased by 0.1 percent. The increase in the Index this month is lower than that of the first two months of the year. The increase in the Index this month reflects increases in industrial production, and in the trade revenue and services revenue indices. In contrast, the indices of goods exports and services exports, consumer products imports, and imports of manufacturing inputs declined. There were essentially no revisions to previous months' estimated rates of change in the Index (Table 1). Table 2 presents the changes in components of the Index in the past few months.


Table 1: Revisions in the Composite Index

Revision
Previous data
New data
 
 
 
March
 
0.08
February
0.24
0.24
January
0.26
0.25

Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months

 (monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)

 

 
March
February
January
December
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)
 
3.8
 
6.1
-7.5
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration)
 
4.4
0.1
0.4
Trade Revenue Index
 
2.3
1.5
-0.4
Imports of consumer products
-3.6
-3.5
9.0
-1.6
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)
-4.8
-4.7
7.0
-0.6
Exports of goods (excluding agriculture)
-14.3
18.7
3.3
-3.4
Exports of services (excluding transportation)
-7.6
1.3
-2.0
4.3
Number of employee posts in the private sector
 
 
0.0
0.1
Rate of vacant employee positions out of total number of employed people in the business sector[1]
 
2.9
2.9
2.9
Building starts[2]
 
 
2.3
-2.5

 

[1] Calculated out of the total number of employed people in the business sector and not as a rate of change.
[2] Six-month moving average.

 

For additional data and explanations please click here.http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx