Israel: Consumer and business sentiment improve in September

Data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) showed that consumer confidence rose from minus 12.9 points in August to minus 8.3 points in September. This improvement represented a broad-based rise in consumer sentiment: Expectations regarding household savings, the labor market, the country’s economic situation and the economic situation of household specifically all improved.

Meanwhile, business sentiment inched up from 23.3 points in August to 23.4 points in September.

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists expect private consumption to grow 4.2% in 2019, which is up 0.1 percentage points from last month’s forecast, and 3.5% in 2020. Our panelists expect fixed investment to expand 4.1% in 2019, which is down 1.2 percentage points from last month’s forecast, and 5.2% in 2020.