Services sector continues expansion

Services companies continued expanding last month despite the double-edged sword of quantitative easing pushing input prices higher and eroding profitability.

Investec’s latest monthly services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) shows further expansion in the services sector in March and while the headline PMI has fallen slightly over the past three months, the reading of 60.9 demonstrates consistent strong growth.

The positivity is tempered by a sharp rise in input prices driven by a fall in the value of the euro against sterling as the effect of the ECB’s €60bn-a-month quantitative easing programme.