UK GDP Preview: Growth expected as ONS release qtr 3 figures

The UK’s economic output has grown in the last three months, official statistics out today are expected to reveal.

Data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is set to disclose the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) has increased by 0.4 per cent in the three months to the end of September.

But while this is an increase on the previous quarter’s 0.1 per cent rise, economists are warning the UK is still failing to grow at a healthy rate.

They are suggesting that these latest improved figures are simply making up for the lack of growth in the previous quarter of this year, the three months ending June 2011.

Events such as the Royal Wedding, which allowed the UK an extra bank holiday, in quarter two are among the factors on which reduced growth is being blamed.

Economists say the quarter three figures will simply rebalance this.

But there are other factors at play too. The Eurozone debt crisis will have had a major effect on manufacturing in the UK as demand from Europe declines.

Meanwhile spending in the UK is down, the cost of living up and incomes are being squeezed. All of which makes the outlook anything but positive as the ONS’s latest GDP results are published.

So far this year, the ONS’s figures showed growth of 0.5 per cent in the first quarter of the year. Then, in the second quarter, it revised its original UK GDP growth figure down from 0.2 per cent to 0.1 per cent.

Nick Raynor, investment adviser at the Share Centre, warned the same could be true this month. “Bear in mind,” he pointed out, “whatever the data does say, it is subject to revision in later months.”

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