In-House Economic Indicators
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:
Real-Time GDP Database
A real-time database is a collection of data vintages, where a vintage represents a time series that was the latest data at a particular point in time. Such a database therefore provides a snapshot of the data available in real time, that is, the data actually at the disposal of users at any given point in the past.
A real-time database has several applications. It can be used to study data revisions, to examine whether empirical macroeconomic results are sensitive to the data vintage used, to evaluate policy actions ex-post and to evaluate forecasts.
In light of this, the Central Bank of Malta has constructed a real-time database for Malta. This real-time database covers gross domestic product and its main expenditure components, in both real and nominal terms.
For further details, see Grech, O. (2018), "An Analysis of Revisions to Maltese GDP Data", Research Bulletin 2018, Central Bank of Malta, pp. 27-34.
Historical Annual Database
This database provides a consistent macroeconomic time-series for Malta using as much as possible official data. It fills a gap in Maltese macroeconomic data, which generally do not extend back beyond the year 2000 and which are subject to a number of breaks in series. For periods where data are not currently provided by the relevant statistical bodies, data were sourced from previously available official data.
It should be noted that the series found in this database are not to be considered as national statistics, but rather as data to be used exclusively for research and analysis purposes.
More information about this database can be found here:
The evolution of the Maltese economy since independence