Business Conditions Index
The Central Bank of Malta tracks business conditions in the Maltese economy. As official estimates of economic activity are released with some delay, the Bank's business conditions index (BCI) is designed to assess economic conditions at high frequency and in real-time. The index aims to inform users, in a clear and timely manner, about the current state of the economy. This web page is updated monthly, with the index appearing in the Central Bank of Malta's monthly Economic Update, the Quarterly Review and the Annual Report.
The BCI is based on a framework described in Ellul, R., (2016), "A real-time measure of business conditions in Malta," Working Paper WP/04/2016, Central Bank of Malta.
Over time, the Central Bank of Malta has altered the index discussed in Ellul (2016) to better suit the needs of the BCI's users. Subsequent refinements and updates to the BCI framework are discussed in a document describing BCI updates.
Updates to the BCI calculation - July 2020
Further information regarding the interpretation of the index can be found here.
The current estimate of the BCI and an archive of previous vintages can be found below: