…but UK services growth continues to slow down
GROWTH in Britain’s services sector slowed sharply last month, confirming analysts’ forecasts that economic activity will have cooled during the third quarter of the year.
The leading Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 53.1 from 54.4 in June, a slightly greater drop than economists had expected and the fourth fall in five months.
The business expectations balance managed to rise to 64.9 from 64.0, but this only reversed a fraction of June’s drop from 72.1.
Although the UK services PMI?caused the composite index of activity to fall to 54.6, the sharpest drop since November 2008, this is consistent with overall quarterly growth of 0.4 per cent in July, said Barclays Capital’s Varun Bhabha.