The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index increased by 0.3 percent in October 2015. The index returned to its growth rate of the recent period, after its rate of growth slowed last month. The increase in the Composite Index derived primarily from increases in imports of consumer goods and of manufacturing inputs in October. In contrast, the decline in the Industrial Production index for September and the decline in the job vacancy rate for October were notable among the factors that moderated the rate of growth. This month there were no significant revisions to the Index’s growth in 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 |
October |
0.29 | |
September |
0.11 |
0.13 |
August |
0.30 |
0.31 |
July |
0.25 |
0.26 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
Oct. 2015 |
Sept. 2015 |
August 2015 |
July 2015 | |
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
-3.4 |
1.7 |
-3.5 | |
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration) |
-0.5 |
1.1 |
-0.5 | |
Trade Revenue Index |
-0.4 |
1.4 |
-0.6 | |
Imports of consumer goods3 |
10.8 |
-10.6 |
7.9 |
-1.1 |
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3 |
4.6 |
-3.5 |
1.6 |
0.1 |
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3 |
0.6 |
-7.7 |
-1.1 |
5.9 |
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3 |
-1.6 |
1.1 |
-3.7 |
2.9 |
Number of employee posts in the private sector |
0.2 |
0.1 | ||
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector1 |
3.16 |
3.46 |
3.34 |
3.25 |
Building starts2 |
-1.0 |
1.0 |
1 The rate of job vacancies at its actual level, seasonally adjusted.
2 Six-month moving average.
3 Foreign trade indices are quantitative (in contrast to CBS monthly foreign trade indices).
For additional data and explanations please click here.