Ljubljana, 31 May (STA) - The Statistics Office (SURS) presented on Thursday a new short-term indicator, the production index in services and trade, used to track sales volumes in services on a monthly basis. The first quarterly comparison shows a 5.6% year-on-year increase. The monthly growth was 1.5%.
SURS said the index covers all sections of business services, except for financial and insurance activities and public services.
The office's Genovefa Ružić told the press that the importance of services has been growing globally as well as in Slovenia, where the services sector accounts for over 40% of gross value added in GDP. Industry makes for slightly over 20% and construction for 6%.
Slovenia experienced a reversal of the growth trend in 2011 but since then the volume of services activities has been growing again.
At the EU level, a similar indicator is published by Sweden, the UK and France, and at the global level by Canada, the US, South Korea, and China.
Moreover, an EU directive is in the pipeline that will require all EU members to calculate such an index, probably in two years or so.