Services - 4. quarter of 2006

In Q4 2006, seasonally adjusted sales in services increased by 1.4% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. Year-on-year, not seasonally adjusted sales rose by 6.1%. The fastest sale growth occurred in transport and computers (+11.0%, 9.3%, respectively), on the other hand the lowest growth was in hotels and restaurants and other service activities (+1.2%, 0.2 %, respectively). In the whole year 2006, sales for services grew by 5.0%, which was the biggest growth since 2000.

In Q4 2006, seasonally adjusted sales in services increased by 1.4% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. The trend component grew by 1.5%, which was the biggest growth in the last sixteen quarters. During 2006 it showed an extraordinary stability, in individual quarters the growth ranged from 1.3% to 1.5%. The irregular component did not practically influence the sales development in 2006 (Table 1).



Graph 1

Year-on-year, without seasonal and calendar adjustments, sales rose by 6.1% in Q4 2006, which was the most since Q4 2003. Among the observed services categories, retail trade including the automotive segment contributed most to the growth and further supporting and auxiliary transport activities (Table 3).


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


- in retail trade incl. the automotive segment sales were up by 6.5%. Sales in retail trade increased by 6.1%; sale of non-food goods by 7.0% and sale of food, beverages and tobacco by 4.7%. In the automotive segment sales rose by 7.4%; increase was recorded for sales from the sale, repair and maintenance of motor vehicles (+7.7%) and also sale of automotive fuel (+7.0%);

- growth in hotels and restaurants by 1.2% was contributed to by the development in restaurants, bars and canteens where sales increased by 2.4%. Sales in hotels and camping sites still kept dropping by 2.1%;

- sales in transport increased the most in the last ten quarters (+11.0%); particularly due to the development in supporting and auxiliary transport activities, where thanks to a marked increase of sales for the sale of goods by some of the important enterprises as their secondary activity, sales increased by 21.3%, which was the biggest increase since Q2 2001. Among the classical transport divisions transport via railways and other land transport participated in the growth (+14.6%, 3.4% respectively). Inland water transport recorded a drop of 31.8%, sales from air transport remained approximately on the level of the same period of 2005 (-0.1%);

- sales in post and telecommunications increased by 4.4%. The growth was contributed to by both telecommunications (+4.1%) and post and courier services (+7.1%), which so confirmed the change of the trend which begun in Q1 2006;

- the sale growth in computer and related activities by 9.3% was contributed to by all of the observed divisions, the most by hardware and software consultancy (+9.7%). In data processing and database activities and maintenance and repair of office and computing machinery and other computer related activities increased by 7.9% respectively 7.1% year-on-year;

- sales in other business activities recorded a year-on-year growth of 1.5%, particularly due to the growth of sales for labour recruitment and provision of personnel by 19.4%. Sales in legal, accounting activities and tax consultancy grew by 3.8% on the contrary sales in advertising and miscellaneous business activities dropped;

- sales in other service activities increased by 0.2%, sales in washing and dry-cleaning were up by 0.3%, sales in hairdressing, physical well-being and funeral activities stagnated.


In the year 2006, sales in services grew by 5.0% at constant prices, which was the biggest growth in the last six years. During the year the biggest growth occurred in Q4 (6.1%), the smallest in Q2 (4.3%).


Sales in individual CZ-NACE divisions developed as follows:
- sales in retail trade incl. the automotive segment were up by 6.4%, sales grew at a high rate in all of the quarters (in the range 6.1 to 6.9%);

- in hotels and restaurants sales dropped by 0.1%, which was influenced by a drop of sales in hotels and camping sites by 2.8%, in restaurants, bars and canteens on the other hand sales increased yearly by 0.9%;

- sales in transport increased by 5.2%. The only transport division, which recorded a year-on-year drop (-13.8%) was inland water transport. Transport via railways reported the highest year-on-year growth (+7.4%) since the beginning of the statistical surveys, i.e. since 1997. Sales in other land transport increased by 1.7%, in air transport by 0.2%. The biggest contribution to the total growth had supporting and auxiliary transport activities (+9.5%);

- sales in post and telecommunications increased by 3.2%. In telecommunications, which contribute to the total sales of this division by more than 90%, growth continued also in 2006 (+3.0%), however it was markedly lower compared to that in 2005. In post and courier activities, on the other hand, the year 2006 was quite favourable. Apart from the fact that sales in all of the quarters grew, which for the last time occurred in 2001, they also recorded the highest growth since 1997 (+5.0%);

- sales in computer and related activities were up by 9.1% year-on-year, in the long term the highest growth was reached by, in terms of volume significant, software consultancy and supply (+10.4%);

- sales in other business activities were up by 0.4% on average, the development of individual divisions greatly varied. The most dynamic sale growth occurred in labour recruitment and provision of personnel (+22.9%), a drop was recorded for advertising (-3.2%);

- sales in other service activities decreased year-on-year by 1.8%, particularly due to the year-on-year drop of hairdressing and other beauty treatment (-2.5%).

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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. (+420) 274052921, e-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in enterprises
End of data collection: 5 February 2007
End of data processing: 8 February 2007
Quarterly data since 1997 are available in time series ( /slu_ts); data for 2006 are preliminary; revised data for all quarters of 2006 will be known in June 2007 at the latest.