India Services Growth Remains Strong In February

(RTTNews) - India's service sector activity continued to expand strongly in February despite a slowdown in growth rates of new orders and output, survey data from S&P Global showed on Tuesday.

The services purchasing managers' index dropped to 60.6 in February from 61.8 in January.

However, the latest score was comfortably above the neutral mark of 50.0 and signalled a sharp rate of expansion that was well above the series history.

New order inflows expanded for the twenty-first successive month, but the rate growth softened from January's recent high. Export demand rose at a solid rate, with more foreign orders coming from Australia, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the UAE.

On the price front, input prices rose further amid higher food, freight, and labour costs. Nonetheless, the rate of inflation was the second-weakest in 42 months. As a result, charge inflation eased to the weakest in two years.

During February, Indian companied reduced their hiring, creating only a small number of new jobs because the labour supply was already meeting demand.

The composite output index decreased to 60.6 in February from a 6-month high of 61.2 in January, indicating a softer but sharper rate of expansion in the Indian private sector.