by Sudip Kar-Gupta
PARIS (Reuters) – Activity in the French services sector grew in April but not as quickly as initially estimated, the final results of the monthly S&P Global survey showed on Thursday.
The services PMI rose to 54.6 from 53.9 in March, well below the first estimate at 56.3 points. The threshold of 50 separates growth and contraction of activity.
The composite PMI, which includes services and manufacturing, fell to 52.4 from 52.7 in March, reflecting continued weakness in manufacturing. The first estimate for April gave it an improvement to 53.8.
The S&P Global survey says there was a “slight deterioration in service-sector business confidence during the month of April” and the price paid and charged indices remained at historically high levels. .
“Price increases in France are increasingly the result of underlying inflation (and not a one-off increase in the price of certain volatile products). While this has recently slowed, the latest PMI data suggest that “It could, for the time being, remain at its high level,” said Norman Liebke, an economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank.
(Sudip Kar-Gupta report; Kate Entringer, edited by Laetitia Volga)
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