Irish services growth highest in a very decade in Jan - PMI

Ireland's services sector grew at its speediest pace in nearly a decade last month as new business in Europe's quickest growing economy expanded  powerfully, a survey showed on Wed.

The Investec getting managers' index (PMI) of activity in services, that covers businesses from banks to hotels, rose to 64.0 in Jan from December's sixty one.8, its highest level since June 2006, at the peak of the 'Celtic Tiger' economic boom.

The sector has recorded over 3-1/2 years of unbroken growth, denoted by a reading over fifty, and last fell below the sixty mark in Feb 2014 once eire was rising from a three-year international bailout.

The jump in Jan was driven by a pointy increase within the new business subindex to sixty six.2 from 62.7 a month earlier, solely the second time it's has reached such A level in over fifteen years.

"The sector has created a awfully spectacular begin to 2016. quite twenty times as several businesses expect to examine growth in activity over future year against people who anticipate a decline," Investec eire chief economic expert Prince Philip O'Sullivan aforesaid.

"Taken at the side of Monday's producing PMI report, this week's surveys counsel that the robust momentum evident across Irish economy in 2015 has continued  into the twelvemonth."

A sister survey on Mon showed Irish producing activity at a six-month high in Jan.