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

The Composite State of the Economy Index for October 2018 increased by 0.3 percent: The economy’s average rate of expansion since the beginning of the year has moderated slightly compared with the rapid pace of the previous two years

The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for October 2018 increased by approximately 0.3 percent, a pace similar to the average of the past three months. The average growth rate of the Index since the beginning of the year is slightly lower than the rapid pace of the past two years, reflecting a rate that is similar to the long-term growth rate of the economy following the more rapid growth of the past two years. The Index was positively impacted by the increase in consumer goods imports and by the increase in exports. In contrast, the declines in industrial production and in indices of retail trade revenue and services revenue moderated the Index’s rate of growth this month. The Index reading for July was revised downward by approximately 0.1 percentage points (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 2018		0.28
September 2018	0.26	0.25
August 2018	0.33	0.32
July 2018	0.33	0.24

 

 

Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months

(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)

	October 2018	September 2018	August 2018	July 2018
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)		-3.3	3.2	1.5
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration)		-1.3	2.2	1.5
Retail Trade Revenue Index		-0.4	-0.1	0.0
Imports of consumer goods1	0.4	-3.3	2.5	2.1
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1	-0.6	3.3	0.6	2.7
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1	0.2	-5.3	4.8	-4.0
Services exports (excluding transportation) 1			1.6	5.3
Number of employee posts in the private sector			0.1	-0.2
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector2	3.9	3.9	3.7	3.8
Building starts3

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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