UK sees recovery become more broad based

Last week’s first estimate of UK GDP for the opening quarter of 2014 indicated an encouraging start to the year for the economy.

The preliminary data showed that the economy grew by 0.8% in the quarter, compared to 0.7% in the last quarter of 2013. On a year-on-year basis, growth increased to 3.1%, from 2.7%, its fastest since the last quarter of 2007.

The breakdown of the GDP data, which is based on the output approach, showed that the services sector was the primary driver behind growth in the quarter. It grew by 0.9%, contributing 0.7 percentage points (pp) to quarterly growth.