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BANK OF ISRAEL
Office of the Spokesperson and Economic Information
October 28, 2014
Press Release
The Composite State of the Economy Index for September 2014 increases by 0.2%
The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for September 2014
increased by 0.2 percent. The Index’s rate of growth is more rapid than its growth rate
in previous months, when the Index was affected by, among other things, the negative
ramifications of Operation Protective Edge. The Index was positively impacted this
month by increases in goods exports and services exports indices for September, by
an increase in building starts, and by increases in the industrial production, trade
revenue, and services revenue indices for August. In contrast, the decline in the
consumer goods imports index and in the job vacancy rate moderated the Index’s rate
of increase. The Index for August was revised upward (Table 1), due to more positive
than expected data on industrial production and trade and services revenue indices.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
0.18
September
0.00
0.10
July
-0.03
-0.02
June
0.08
0.10
August
1
Due to the lag in availability of some components of the composite index in the current month,
projections based on additional sources of data are used on a monthly basis in order to fill in the latest
observations which are unavailable. The better than expected data also positively impacted the
Composite Index for previous months as well.
Bank of Israel - The Composite State of the Economy Index for September 2014
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Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
September August
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining
3.5
and quarrying)
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance,
1.3
education, and public administration)
1.9
Trade Revenue Index
-5.4
7.5
Imports of consumer goods3
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding
0.7
-0.8
fuels)3
3
1.9
-5.3
Goods exports (excluding agriculture)
3
1.6
-5.1
Services exports (excluding transportation)
Number of employee posts in the private sector
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total
number of employed people in the business
2.61
2.65
sector1
Building starts2
July
June
-0.6
-0.2
-2.6
-4.8
-1.9
2.0
0.4
0.3
-1.0
0.1
-3.5
-0.8
-0.8
-2.0
-1.0
0.1
2.66
3.2
2.66
-2.7
1
The rate of job vacancies at its actual level, seasonally adjusted and smoothed.
Six-month moving average.
3
Foreign trade indices are quantitative (in contrast to CBS monthly foreign trade indices).
2
For additional data and explanations please click here.
http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx
Bank of Israel - The Composite State of the Economy Index for September 2014
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