Commenting on the revised GDP figures for the second quarter, published last Friday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which stated that the economy contracted by 0.7% in the period – less than the original estimate of a 0.8% decline, David Kern, Chief Economist at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said:
“After this week’s poor business investment figures, the GDP revision comes as a slight relief. Fears that GDP would be revised downward have proved too pessimistic. However, the small improvement cannot obscure the severity of the UK recession and the challenges facing us.
“The new figures are consistent with the expectation that GDP will increase slightly in the second half of the year. But, the productive sector of the economy is still very weak and the government must manage the task of repairing our public finances without damaging wealth-creating businesses”.
According to ONS, output of the production industries fell by 0.6 % compared with a fall of 5.1 % in the previous quarter, with output of manufacturing industries falling by 0.2 % compared with a fall of 5.5 % in the previous quarter.
FinSMEs
31/08/2009