Northern Ireland's private sector economy expanded for the tenth successive month in January, according to the Ulster Bank PMI survey produced by NTC Research.
Stronger demand from both the domestic and export markets spurred the latest growth but the pace slowed marginally for the second month running and, in doing so, had diverged slightly from the trend indicated for the UK as a whole.
Improving market conditions, rising business confidence and increased public sector spend were all reported to have driven new business higher during the month.
Efforts by firms to raise capacity resulted in further growth of employment in January, the report said.
Although still only modest, the rate of increase of the Northern Ireland private sector workforce was broadly in line with the average for the UK as a whole.
