Britain’s services sector records its best performance in 17 months in December, despite concerns over the economic impact of Brexit
Activity beat economists' forecasts at the end of last year, keeping Britain on track to be one of the world's fastest growing economies
BRITAIN'S services sector continues to shrug off concerns of a post-Brexit vote slump as it recorded strong results in December.
Activity jumped to a 17-month high at the end of last year, despite worries about economic uncertainty after the EU referendum result.
The services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) reached 56.2 last month, up from 55.2 in November. It beat economists' predictions of 54.7 - anything above 50 means the sector is growing.
Services, which include areas such as banking and retail, make up around three quarters of the UK economy.
The results are another indicator that Britain's resilient economy continues to do well despite some gloomy predictions of a downturn.
The report said that Britain's services sector ended 2016 with good results.
It was driven by growth in new businesses - the strongest since July last year. Employment growth also remained stable.
However, the report did warn that inflation pressures were high, which were linked to the weak pound.
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Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, said: "A buoyant service sector adds to signs that the UK economy continues to defy widely-held expectations of a Brexit-driven slowdown. The faster growth of services activity follows similar news of improvements in the manufacturing and construction sectors at the end of 2016.
"At face value, this improvement suggests that the next move by the Bank of England is more likely to be a rate hike than a cut, but policymakers are clearly concerned about the extent to which Brexit-related uncertainty could slow growth this year."
The news comes just days after the UK's manufacturing sector reported a 30-month high.
Britain ended the year on a strong footing after the UK manufacturing PMI posted 56.1 in December.
"Rates of growth for production and new orders in December were among the best seen over the past two-and-a-half years," the report said.
And construction figures were on the up too as output grew at the fastest pace for nine months.