2Q UK GDP Growth Trimmed to 0.4%

Oct. 1, 2012
It looks like economic growth in the UK during 2Q 2012 was slightly less than initially reported, according to IHS Global Insight's Chief European and

It looks like economic growth in the UK during 2Q 2012 was slightly less than initially reported, according to IHS Global Insight's Chief European and UK Economist Howard Archer. Says Archer, “The trimming of GDP contraction in the second quarter to 0.4% quarter-on-quarter from 0.5% is welcome news but it does not fundamentally change the economic story,” he said in an IHS Global Insight report. “Allowing for the hit to activity coming from the extra day's public holiday in June and the wet weather hitting construction and retail activity, underlying economic activity was essentially flat in the 2Q. The upward revision to the second-quarter GDP data was primarily due to less severe construction contraction than previously estimated and a trimming of the dip in industrial production.”

“3Q GDP growth is expected to have been lifted by the making up of some of the activity lost in the second quarter to the extra day public holiday and wet weather, while there is likely to have been a modest overall positive impact from the Olympics. We have pencilled in GDP growth around 0.6%-0.7% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter.”