British economy increases by 0.5 percent in first quarter
2011-04-29 11:54:02
British economy increased by 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2011 following a decrease of 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported on Wednesday.
The ONS said that total services output in the UK increased by 0.9 percent in the first quarter compared with a decrease of 0.6 percent in the previous quarter. The largest contribution to the growth in this quarter was from business services and finance. Business services and finance increased by 1.0 percent, compared with a decline of 0.8 percent in the previous quarter. Other business services contributed most to the growth in this quarter.
Total production output in Britain rose by 0.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared with an increase of 0.8 percent in the previous quarter. The largest contribution to the growth in this quarter was from manufacturing. British manufacturing increased by 1.1 percent in the first quarter compared with a similar increase of 1.1 percent in the last quarter of 2010. Mining and quarrying decreased by 0.4 percent, compared with a decrease of 4.1 percent in the previous quarter.
The report also showed that UK construction output decreased by 4.7 percent in the first quarter, compared with a decrease of 2.3 percent in the previous quarter.
British economy suffered a serious recession in the past years and the GDP of the country declined for six quarters in a row from the second quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2009. The UK economy began its recovery from the last quarter of 2009 but declined again in the fourth quarter of 2010 after increasing for four quarters.
However, the ONS report said on Wednesday that the effect of the abnormal weather conditions in December 2010 is estimated to have subtracted 0.5 percent from growth in the fourth quarter and GDP is estimated now to have returned to the level in the third quarter of 2010.