New Zealand’s services sector experienced an increase in expansion levels for the first month of 2019, according to the BNZ – BusinessNZ Performance of Services Index (PSI).
The PSI for January was 56.3, which was 3.1 points up from December (A PSI reading above 50.0 indicates that the service sector is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining). This was the highest level of expansion since May, and above the long term average of 54.5 for the survey.
BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope said that it was good to see 2019 start off on solid expansion grounds.
“It was particularly good to see the key sub-indicators of activity/sales (61.5) and new orders/business (61.4) both above the 60-point mark, with the former at its highest level since March 2018.
Despite the rise in overall activity levels, the proportion of positive comments in January (54.0%) was almost exactly the same as December (54.4%), but lower than both November (60.1%) and October (56.5%). Both Xmas and holidays were again the stand out reasons for negative comments, while a number of positive comments outlined new clients and business opportunities for the new year”.
BNZ Senior Economist Craig Ebert said “January’s PSI suggests that the services sector is still chugging along relatively well, as we head into 2019, rather than fading as a backbone to GDP growth”.
