LONDON (MNI) – The best way to look at Wednesday’s UK GDP figures
is to note that output was flat across the past three quarters,
according to Joe Grice Director of Economic and Labour Market Statistics
at the Office for National Statisics
“Overall, the best way to look at it, is that GDP for the three
quarters, the level, third quarter, fourth quarter, first quarter was
flat,” Grice said.
Grice also said that he did not expect a significant revision to
today’s figures.
“We have no reason to think that these figures understate what is
really going on. The preliminary estimates we appraise very carefully
and historically there is no bias,” he said.
“There is a margin of error, that margin at this stage is roughly
0.2% in both directions,” he added.
“At this stage we’ve got about 42% of the data that we will have
in about a year’s time. For construction, we have two months hard data
for January and February and some information for the third month
(March),” Harry Duff, senior statistician at the ONS said.
Today’s data showed that construction output fell 4.7% on the
quarter in Q1, the largest quarterly fall since Q1 2009, following a
2.3% drop in Q4. National Statistics said that data from January and
February had shown strength in new construction work, but weakness in
repair and maintenance.
–London newsroom: 00 44 20 7862 7492; email: ukeditorial@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: M$B$$$,M$$BE$,MSSFX$]