According to the latest market research report released on Thursday by Markit the business activity in services sector declined for the month of February. The euro zone’s services business activity index dropped to 56.8 for the month of February as compared to last month figure of 57.2.

Analysts on wide were also expecting that the Services PMI will remain unchanged from the last months figure.  For the better understanding of the respective indicator the PMI index is interpreted as if the index level is above 50 it indicates expansion in industry and if its below the level of 50 it indicates contraction in services industry.

As per the latest PMI data business activity in euro zone has increased with constant growth rate from last six months which has been mainly contributed by the economies of France and Germany. Ireland’s economy has also been growing very fast and reported the highest PMI index in last seven months. Spain and Italy has also reported expansion in services industry in February after disappointing data for the month of January.

The rise in services PMI is very encouraging after series of disappointing factor in month of February such as higher costs of energy and fuel and high inflation. Major European countries experienced heavy surge in their input prices in last 2.5 years.

The fall in services PMI resulted in weakening of the single currency as the Euro declined 0.11 percent to 1.3849 versus the US dollar on Thursday.

However the European stock markets remained bullish on the data as the FTSE 100 gained 0.41 percent while Euro STOXX 50 surged 0.4 percent. Germany’s DAX index soared 0.44 percent while CAC gained 0.46 percent on Thursday.