UK economic growth revised down


The estimate of growth in the UK economy has been revised downwards in official figures.


UK gross domestic product (GDP) is now estimated to have increased by 0.2% during the first quarter of the year compared with the final quarter of 2016, not the 0.3% of first estimates.


The slowdown was mainly due to broad-based downward revisions within the services sector.


In first quarter of 2017, all four sectors show positive growth; agriculture increased by 0.3%, total production increased by 0.1% and construction and total services both increased by 0.2%.


Within the production sub-industries, output from mining and quarrying (including oil and gas extraction) increased by 1.8%; manufacturing (the largest component of production) increased by 0.3%; and electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply industries decreased by 4.3%. Water supply and sewerage increased by 0.7%.


GDP in the first quarter of 2017 was 2.0% higher than the same quarter 2016, not the 2.1% of the preliminary estimate.


www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/secondestimateofgdp/quarter1jantomar2017