Bethel Finance news:
There was a flood of macroeconomic data from the Central Bureau of Statistics today, including the third estimate for GDP growth in the second half of 2010, industrial production, Israel's foreign trade by country, turnover figures for all industries according to VAT returns for February, and exports of services in February. The outstanding figure was a rise in Israel's trade deficit to $4.3 billion in the first quarter of this year.
The third estimate of economic growth in the second half of 2010 indicates a growth rate of 5.6% in GDP and 6.3% in business GDP. Analysis of developments by quarter shows that GDP rose in the fourth quarter of 2010 by an annual rate of 7.8%, higher by 0.1% than the second estimate, after a 4.6% rate of growth in the third quarter.
Output of the finance and business services sector grew by an annual 14.0% in the second half of 2010. Output of the construction industry rose by an annual 7.4%, and output by the transport and communications industries rose by an annual 5.5%. There were declines in output of manufacturing industry, down by an annual 4.3%, and of the hospitality industry, down by an annual rate of 5.8%.
Another figure published today was industrial production, which rose in the period December 2010 - February 2011 by 5.6% (based on trend data). In February there was a rise of 0.6% in industrial production, following a rise of 0.5% in January, which constitutes a reversal of trend, after between July and November there was a drop in industrial production according to trend data. High tech stood out in February, with output by high-tech firms rising 1.1%, after rising by 0.8% in January.
The third figure published by the Central Bureau of Statistics today was on Israel's foreign trade in March 2011. Imports of goods (excluding diamonds) were $5.9 billion. Imports were 36% from the EU, 22% from Asia, 12% from the US, and the remaining 30% from other countries.
Exports of goods (excluding diamonds) totaled $4.3 billion in March, and the trade deficit was a $1.6 billion. Exports of goods to EU countries accounted for 30% of the total, exports to the US 27%, exports to Asia 18%, and exports to the rest of the world 25%.
Trade balance data indicate that the trade deficit (excluding diamonds) jumped 2.53 times, and was $4.3 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2011, compared with a deficit of $1.7 billion in the same period last year.
The last figure published by CBS was the export of services in February 2011 (not including start-ups), which amounted to $2 billion, seasonally adjusted, a decline of 6.6% compared with the previous month. The decline is attributed to the decline in exports of tourism and transport services. This compares with an increase of 6.1% in services exports in the previous month (January 2011 compared with December 2010). Exports of services including start-up companies, seasonally adjusted, fell by 7.1% compared with January 201.
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