UK growth in the first quarter has been left unrevised by the Office for National Statistics at only 0.3 per cent, in spite of projections from the Bank of England and economists that it would be revised up.
The quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.3 per cent, confirmed by the ONS in its newly-published second estimate, is only half of the already below-trend pace of 0.6 per cent in the final three months of last year. This slowdown underlines the challenges facing the UK economy.
The latest figures highlight the UK's poor international trade performance.
Flagging the Bank of England's views about first-quarter growth, put at 0.3 per cent when the ONS published its initial estimate in late April, minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee's May 7 and 8 meeting state: "Survey indicators had suggested a faster rate of output growth than in the first release of the ONS data.
"That divergence was particularly evident for the construction sector where the surveys had pointed to a healthy expansion, rather than a contraction in output on the quarter. Based on those surveys, Bank staff expected GDP growth for Q1 eventually to be revised up to 0.5 per cent."
Howard Archer, chief UK economist at consultancy IHS Global Insight, said: "GDP growth in the first quarter was disappointingly and slightly unexpectedly unrevised at 0.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter, which was the weakest growth since the fourth quarter of 2013.
"It had looked likely that upward revisions to industrial production and construction output would cause GDP growth to be revised up to 0.4 per cent but this was countered by services growth being revised down."
He added: "On the expenditure side of the economy, growth was held back by a very disappointing, sharply negative net trade performance as imports of goods and services rose markedly, while exports disappointingly edged down."
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