Wellington, July 20 (IANS): New Zealand's services sector maintained a healthy rate of growth last month, said the latest performance of services index (PSI) on Monday.

The Business New Zealand (BNZ) PSI for June was 58.2, up 0.1 point from May, on a scale, where above 50 indicates expansion and below 50 indicates contraction, Xinhua reported.

The consistent level of expansion over the first six months of 2015 had been helped by both activity/sales and new orders remaining within a fairly tight band of expansion, said Business New Zealand chief executive Phil O'Reilly in a statement

"Combined with the improved PMI (performance of manufacturing index) reading for June (55.2), the latest PSI paints a picture of an economy expanding robustly, probably a little better than average," said BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert in a statement.

The gross domestic product-weighted performance of composite index, which combines the (PMI) and PSI, was up 0.6 points in June to 57.8.