The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for August 2017
increased by 0.3 percent, slightly more than previous months (about 0.2
percent). The increase in the Index indicates
continued expansion of economic activity at a quite stable pace since the
beginning of the year. The Index was positively affected in August mainly by an
increase in goods exports and by increases in the import of inputs and in the
job vacancy rate. In contrast, the Industrial Production index and the retail
trade revenue index for July moderated the increase of the Index (Table
2).
The Composite Index figures for recent months were revised slightly
downward (Table 1), due to slight downward revisions in some of the Index
components.
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
|
|
August
|
|
0.31
|
|
July
|
0.24
|
0.22
|
|
June
|
0.28
|
0.25
|
|
May
|
0.21
|
0.18
|
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
|
|
August 2017
|
July 2017
|
June 2017
|
May 2017
|
|
Industrial
Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)
|
|
-2.2
|
1.4
|
-4.0
|
|
Services
Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration)
|
|
-0.1
|
2.1
|
-1.4
|
|
Retail Trade
Revenue Index
|
|
-0.7
|
1.7
|
-3.2
|
|
Imports
of consumer goods1
|
-0.7
|
0.5
|
-0.3
|
-1.8
|
|
Imports
of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1
|
0.4
|
0.2
|
-4.1
|
0.4
|
|
Goods
exports (excluding agriculture) 1
|
7.7
|
-4.5
|
-1.2
|
0.2
|
|
Services
exports (excluding transportation) 1
|
|
-0.5
|
2.8
|
-2.2
|
|
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
sector
|
3.9
|
3.8
|
3.8
|
3.8
|
For additional data and explanations please click here.
http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx