UK economy grows 0.8 per cent in second quarter
UK GDP expanded 0.8 per cent in the second quarter and 3.2 per cent annualised, beating analyst expectations and contrasting starkly with the stagnating Eurozone.
The increase in output – of more than three per cent year-on-year – marks the strongest such increase since the last quarter of 2007.
Output in the services sector, which accounts for 75 per cent of UK GDP, grew one per cent, while industrial production rising 0.3 per cent. However, output in construction was flat and dropped 0.2 per cent in agriculture.
Despite the positive figures, some analysts are warning that there is no room for complacency.
Robert Wood, chief UK economist at Berenberg, said:
The broad based growth the UK has seen over the past year could well get more lopsided in the near term.
But that widely spread expansion will get more lopsided over the next couple of quarters as events in Ukraine are weighing on the internationally exposed manufacturing sector, while UK domestic demand continues to expand rapidly. We may have to brace for continued weak economic data from Germany and Europe over the next month. Still, the very fact that Russia is now hurting itself badly makes it even more likely that the conflict will be contained in a month or two,
Today's release is earlier than usual because of data revisions planned for September. Published by the Office for National Statistics, the numbers also did not include the expenditure breakdown of GDP.
A spokesman from the Treasury commented on the figures:
Today’s figures confirm that our economy has recovered all of the output lost in the Great Recession, and is now bigger than its previous peak in the first quarter of 2008.
The government’s long term economic plan is working, with the economy growing at its fastest annual rate in six years. But the job is not yet done and so we will go on making the realistic assessment of what needs to be done to secure a brighter economic future.