Second GDP estimate sees UK growth confirmed at 0.8pc as business investment leaps
A second estimate of first quarter GDP growth confirms that UK GDP grew at 0.8 per cent in the first three months of this year.
The Office for National Statistics' first estimate of growth was based entirely on the output side of the economy.
This second release incorporates what’s going on on the expenditure side. Analysts didn't expect to see any change in the top line figures.
The intial release put output 0.8 per cent up over the quarter, leaving UK GDP some 3.1 per cent higher on a year earlier, the highest year-over-year rate since the last quarter of 2007.
Among the data points released today, the investment numbers stand out. Total business investment grew by 2.7 per cent in the first quarter, beating the 2.2 per cent growth that economists had forecast.
Investec's Victoria Clarke noted in a preview of today's second estimate of GDP that recent adjustments, made by the ONS, have seen an upward revision to construction output growth to 0.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter (from 0.3 per cent), and a minor downward revision to industrial output growth to 0.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter (from 0.8 per cent).
Clarke did not expect that those changes would budge the overall estimate of quarterly growth.
