MADRID, 5 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The growth of activity in the services sector in Spain maintained a solid expansion rate in June, although substantially lower than in previous months, according to the PMI index, which fell to 53.4 points from 56.7 in May, which represents the worst reading of the data since January given the uncertainty of the electoral appointment on July 23 and salary pressures.

"The Spanish services sector, which has shown a very robust rate of expansion in recent months, is gradually losing momentum," said Cyrus de la Rubia, chief economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank, noting that some companies surveyed have cited recent regional elections, as well as the general elections to be held at the end of July "as one of the reasons why the rate of expansion has slowed down".

Regarding price developments, the survey shows that the inflation rates of purchase prices and sales prices remained historically high, although they continued to ease, underlining that strong wage pressures continued to be the main driver of the last round of inflation.

On its side, the continued resilience of demand supported a further uptick in new orders, which increased for the eighth consecutive month, although the pace of expansion was the least pronounced in five months. This new increase in demand encouraged companies in their hiring efforts at the end of the second quarter of the year.

On the other hand, the composite PMI index, which in addition to the data for the services sector also takes into account the manufacturing data, which in June worsened to 48 points from the 48.4 in May, stood at 52.6 integers, compared to the 55.2 of the previous month, which represents the slowest rate of expansion since last January.