AMID the general UK economic malaise, it is great to get some good news.

And official figures today revealing that economic growth in Scotland was four times the lowly rate previously revealed for the UK as a whole in the first quarter certainly provided some much-needed cheer.

The Scottish Government figures showed gross domestic product north of the Border in the opening three months of 2023 was up by 0.4% on the fourth quarter of last year. UK GDP grew by only 0.1% quarter-on-quarter in the opening three months of this year, according to previously published figures from the Office for National Statistics.

There seem to be plenty of doomsayers at the moment in relation to the Scottish economy, so today’s numbers are a heartening antidote to some of the negativity, and almost certainly represented an upside surprise for many given the weakness of first-quarter UK growth.

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Scottish growth in the first quarter of 2023 represents an acceleration from expansion of 0.2% quarter-on-quarter in the final three months of last year. GDP had dipped by 0.3% in the third quarter of last year and been flat over the three months to June 2022. It had increased by 0.6% quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of last year.

Comparing the first quarter of 2023 with the opening three months of last year, Scottish GDP was up by 0.3%. This is ahead of year-on-year growth of 0.2% in the first quarter in the UK as a whole.

Of course, no one is pretending that everything in the garden is rosy.

Companies in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK continue to face a very difficult operating backdrop, with inflation having fallen but still sky-high by the standards of recent decades, a skills and labour shortage crisis fuelled by Brexit, and the loss of frictionless trade with our biggest export market, the European Union. And then there is the continuing energy price misery for businesses and households.

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Understandably sounding a note of caution about the economic outlook, the Scottish Government said in the GDP data release: "The start of 2023 has seen a slight improvement in economic activity and optimism compared to the second half of 2022, during which economic output remained broadly flat and inflation rose to its highest rate since 1981. However, economic conditions are extremely challenging and the outlook for the year ahead remains subdued."

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Things are clearly tough for businesses and households alike.

However, the fact that the backdrop is so difficult makes the latest growth figures for the economy north of the Border particularly welcome, especially given the general lack of things economic to celebrate in the UK these days.