The Central Bureau of Statistics has upwardly revised its growth figures for the third quarter of 2016. The new figures for the third revision show 3.6% annualized growth, compared with the previous figure of 3.4% and the original figure of 3.2%. Private spending was up by an annualized 3.4%. Exports of goods and services rose by only 0.3%, showing that a problem exists, because this item includes both high-tech exports and exports of physical goods; since high-tech exports performed reasonably, exports of physical goods were clearly very low.
Another interesting figure is investment in fixed assets, which jumped by an annualized 15.3% in the third quarter. This figure reflects mainly real estate purchases, due to the fact that according to various analyses by senior economists in Israel, investments in machinery and manufacturing equipment has been either very low or almost non-existent in recent years.
Business product rose by an annualized 4.2% in the third quarter, following rises of 5.4% in the second quarter and 2.5% in the first quarter. The Central Bureau of Statistics notes that the development of business product in the third quarter reflects increases in output in industry, mining and quarrying (an annualized 9.7%), construction (7.5%), transportation, storage, and mail (8.3%), information and communications (5.5%), and financial services, insurance, real estate, and miscellaneous (9.5%). Output in commerce and hosting services was down by an annualized 2.8%.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on January 16, 2017
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