GROWTH in the UK services sector accelerated in April to its fastest pace in eight months, a survey has shown.
The survey, published by the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, follows reports published by CIPS in recent days showing a sharp slowdown in growth in the UK manufacturing and construction sectors.
CIPS's headline business activity index for the services sector rose from 58.9 in March to 59.5 in April on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
The April reading signalled the fastest pace of expansion since last August. However, growth remained well adrift of the rate achieved in October 2013, when the business activity index for services hit 62.5.
Figures published last week by the Office for National Statistics showed the UK economy grew by only 0.3 per cent during the opening three months of this year.
Chris Williamson, chief economist at CIPS survey compiler Markit, said: "The UK PMI (purchasing managers' index) business surveys recorded an encouragingly robust pace of growth in April, boding well for a rebound in the economy after the weakness seen in the first quarter.
"Less positive are the signs that the upturn has become increasingly reliant on the service sector and consumer spending, which raises concerns about the sustainability of the expansion and a lack of rebalancing towards manufacturing. A fall in prices charged will also revive fears about deflation."
CIPS said last Friday that UK manufacturing growth had slowed to its weakest pace in seven months in April, as export orders fell and the rate of job-creation slowed.
And UK construction sector growth slowed sharply to its weakest pace for 22 months in April.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article