Otago-Southland has returned to more usual levels of growth, the latest BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance in Services index (PSI) shows.
Nationally, the index for August was 57.9; above 50 indicates expansion, while Otago-Southland was 55.8, down from 56.1 in June, but up from 36.5 in August last year. Canterbury-Westland fell 5.6 points to 51.9.
The Otago Southland Employers' Association's recent forecast supporting ongoing expansionary services sector activity seemed, overall, to be ''ringing true'' with the PSI result, chief executive John Scandrett said.
Orders and new business and general activity sub-indices were nudging the 60-point expansion marker but not all operators were pleased with the August performance, Mr Scandrett said.
Selected tourism and retail areas experienced positive or acceptable trading, but other tourism operators
and some property and business services people were ''quite negative'' on the month's results, he said.
While down 0.5 points from July, nationally the indexcontinued to show healthy activity in the sector, with an average monthly result of 56.6so far for 2014.
For the third consecutive month, all five main sub-indices were expanding and employment (56) recorded its highest result since the survey began in 2007, as did supplier deliveries (59).
BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said confidence remained high across most sectors.
There was encouraging resilience in the PSI, consistent with faster than average economic growth.
