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BANK OF ISRAEL
Office of the Spokesperson and Economic Information
January 24, 2016
Press Release
The Composite State of the Economy Index for December 2015 increases by 0.2
percent
The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for December 2015
increased by 0.2 percent. The Index continues to increase at the pace that has
characterized it recently. The increase in the Composite Index reflects an increase in
most of its components, mainly a sharp increase in industrial production for
November. In contrast, the decline in goods exports in December moderated the pace
of increase in the Index. The Index for November was revised slightly upward, since
actual data were stronger than the estimate for industrial production and for services
exports for that month1 (Table 1). Table 2 presents the development of components of
the Index in the past few months.
Summarizing 2015, the Composite Index (annual average) increased by 2.9 percent,
following growth of 2.1 percent in the previous year. The pace of growth of the
Composite Index accelerated in 2015, in contrast with a slight moderation in the
business product growth rate from 2.3 percent in 2014 to 2.1 percent in 2014.2 A
main contributing factor to this is that the Composite Index includes two components
that reflect the improvement in the labor market in 2015 (employee posts in the
private sector and the job vacancy rate). The yearly difference in the growth rate
reflects the difference in the second quarter of the year, when business sector product
declined by 1.1 percent while the Composite Index increased by 3 percent (both in
annual terms). The acceleration in the growth rate of the Composite Index in 2015
reflected particularly the acceleration in the growth rate of the trade and services
revenue indices and a sizeable increase in the job vacancy rate, while the declines in
the goods and services exports indices partly offset the annual increase in the Index.
Table 1: Revisions in the Composite Index
Revision
Previous data
New data
December
0.22
November
0.16
0.28
October
0.22
0.25
September
0.08
0.11
1
As part of the calculation of the Composite Index, advance estimates are made for components that
are published by the Central Bureau of Statistics with a lag of one month. More details are available at
the link below.
2
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics annual estimate.
Bank of Israel - The Composite State of the Economy Index for December 2015
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Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
December November
Industrial Production Index (excluding
mining and quarrying)
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance,
education, and public administration)
Trade Revenue Index
Imports of consumer goods3
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding
fuels)3
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3
Number of employee posts in the private
sector
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total
number of employed people in the business
sector1
Building starts2
October September
7.3
-2.3
-3.2
5.5
-0.2
1.5
-4.2
0.8
0.6
10.9
-0.5
-0.6
-10.4
4.8
-2.0
1.5
-3.3
4.2
0.1
4.7
4.6
4.4
-3.5
-5.6
-2.8
0.1
-0.1
3.26
-3.6
3.52
-4.1
3.70
3.44
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 December 2015
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