The increase indicates continued economic growth, expressed by further increases in domestic and export demand
The Bank of Israel's Composite State-of-the-Economy Index for February 2011, increased by 0.4% from its January level. The increase indicates continued economic growth, expressed by further increases in domestic and export demand. Almost all components of the index showed increases, except for the index of consumer goods import.
The composite state of the economy index is a cyclical indicator for examining the direction in which real economic activity is moving, in real time. It is calculated from the monthly changes in seven components that reflect different aspects of real economic activity, i.e., the indexes of manufacturing production; imports of consumer goods; imports of production inputs; trade and services revenue; the number of employee jobs in the business sector; exports of goods (excluding agriculture, fuel, diamonds, and ships and aircraft ) and exports of services (tourism, computer and know-how, communications, insurance and other business services ).
The main components of the index moved as follows: The index of manufacturing production increased by 2.6% in January, following its 0.1% decline in December. The trade and services revenue index rose by 1.8% in January, following its 0.4% fall in December. The services exports index rose in February by 6.1%, following its 3.2% decline in January.
The index of imports of production inputs rose in February by 3.7%, further to its 3.8% rise in January. The goods exports index increased in February by 4.5%, following its 0.6% rise in January. The index of consumer goods imports fell by 5% in February, after increasing by 4.5% in January.
