Latest GDP figures released

Christian Spence, Head of Business Intelligence at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commer

Official data from the Office for National Statistics released today shows that the first estimate of GDP growth in Q4 2013 was 0.7% for the quarter (1.9% year-on-year) indicating 2.8% growth for 2013.

Commenting on the figures, Christian Spence, Head of Business Intelligence at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, said: “Today’s data is in-line with our own forecasts for growth which build on the data of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce Quarterly Economic Survey.

"It also confirms our belief that the economic recovery has stabilised with all major indicators except trade showing strong positive trends. Growth of 1.9% year-on-year and of 2.8% for the whole of 2013 is robust and shows that economic output has now returned to longer-term trend. This will provide comfort for both businesses and consumers and, as we are now predicting 2.5% growth for 2014, confidence is likely to improve further for businesses as medium-term demand becomes clearer.

“The service sector is driving the recovery, contributing the majority of growth in this quarter’s data, though output from the production industries has also risen by 0.7% and we expect this to be sustained throughout the coming year. The construction data appears weaker than we would expect, though here in Greater Manchester there is substantial investment in this sector scheduled to begin in 2014 meaning we are not concerned by this first estimate.

“The headline data has been heavily affected by significant weaknesses in output from offshore extraction industries and, removing this from the data, the internal non-oil UK economy has grown on average by around 1.5% each year since 2010. All indicators now point to a sustainable recovery and we expect to see increased pay awards in the 2014 rounds on the back of this positive news and rapidly falling unemployment creating greater competition in the labour market, driving wages up as the year progresses.

“There will be parts of the economy, both sectorally and geographically, that will continue to feel significant pressure from the longer-term effects of the recession. The role of business representative organisation such as ourselves, and government, is now to support those areas, businesses and individuals to take maximum advantage of the recovery and help them to access the growing parts of our economy so the benefits can be as widely shared as possible. This recovery has been a long time coming; we must now move to seize its benefits.”