New Zealand’s services sector continued to remain in a tight band of expansion for April, according to the BNZ – BusinessNZ Performance of Services Index (PSI).

The PSI for April was 56.5. While this was 1.1 points lower than March, it was the fifth month in a row of recording values between 56.0-57.9 (A PSI reading above 50.0 indicates that the service sector is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining).

BusinessNZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly said that the key indicators of activity/sales and new orders/business remained over the 60-point mark, which bodes well for the short term in terms of ongoing growth.

“However, its sister survey the PMI has seen some inconsistent levels of expanion for 2015, so we will be monitoring whether this flows through to the PSI in the short-medium term.”

BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said that while retail spending started 2015 on the charge, spending growth looks like it will slow markedly in Q2. “Given the 1.1% fall reported for April’s electronic card transactions, we’ll need to see a big bounce in May’s transactions if we’re to believe that June quarter retail trade volumes expanded, at all”.