Services - 1. quarter of 2006

In Q1 2006, seasonally adjusted sales in services increased by 1.5% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. Year-on-year, not seasonally and working days adjusted sales rose by 4.7%, which was the highest increase in the last nine quarters.
In Q1 2006, seasonally adjusted sales in services increased by 1.5% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. The trend component for the same period grew by 1.0%, which represented a slight acceleration compared to the average of the last four quarters (Table 1).Graph 1
Year-on-year, not seasonally and working days adjusted sales rose by 4.7% (Q1 2006 had two working days more than Q1 2005), which was the highest growth in the last nine quarters. The retail trade including the automotive segment made up nearly 84% of the contribution to the growth, whereas other business activities and hotels and restaurants (see Table 3) reduced the growth. Compared to the average of the last four quarters, a higher growth was reached only in retail trade, transport and in computer and related activities.

Year-on-year development of not seasonally adjusted sales in services broken down by CZ-NACE division:

- sales in retail trade incl. the automotive segment were up by 7.1%. Sales in retail trade increased by 7.0%, sales in the automotive segment rose by 7.3% (sales from the sale, repair and maintenance of motor vehicles grew by 11.3% and the sale of automotive fuel by 0.8%);

- the drop of sales in hotels and restaurants was influenced by the situation in hotels and camping sites where sales dropped by 7.2% and also in restaurants, bars and canteens where sales dropped by 4.1%. The mentioned development was partly influenced by a lower number of foreign guests in connection with the shift of this year’s Easter to April;

- sales in transport grew most in the last six quarters with the contribution of all modes of transport. Sales in other land transport, which is the most important in terms of volume, increased by 4.2%, in transport via railways by 3.4% and in air transport by 5.1%. Supporting and auxiliary transport activities copied the development of the whole division and rose by 4.8%;

- in post and telecommunications the year-on-year growth was influenced mainly by the development in telecommunications (+4.2%), even though it fell behind the dynamics of the previous year, on the other hand sales in post and courier activities, after six quarters of decreases, rose by 1.1%;

- the long-term growth continued in computer and related activities, the biggest contribution to this growth had hardware and software consultancy and supply (+9.4%);

- sales in other business activities dropped year-on-year mainly due to a marked decrease of sales in advertising. In architectural and engineering activities and technical testing a drop of 4.4% was recorded, in legal, accounting activities and tax consultancy there was a drop of 2.9%. On the other hand, the biggest growth of sales (+22.2%) was in labour recruitment and provision of personnel;

- sales in other service activities continued to drop, which was caused by the development of, in terms of volume significant, hairdressing, physical well-being and funeral activities (-4.1%).

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Note
1) The whole time series is seasonally adjusted every quarter, indices in the graph are changed retroactively.

Contact: Hellerová Alena, tel. 274052935, e-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in enterprises
End of data collection: 11May 2006
End of data processing: 16 May 2006
The data for Q1 2006 are preliminary; revised data for all quarters of 2006 will be known in June 2006 at the latest.
Quarterly data since 1997 are available in time series ( /produkty/slu_cr , on the basis of final processing data for all months of 2005 were updated.