LONDON: Britain’s economy recorded its fastest annual growth since 2007 last year despite a bigger-than-expected slowdown in the final three months of 2014, giving a mixed message just 100 days before Britons go to the polls.
British gross domestic product grew by 2.6 percent in 2014 as a whole, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday, up from 1.7 percent in 2013 and putting it on track to have been the world’s fastest-growing major advanced economy last year.
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While most countries have not yet reported 2014 growth data, Britain’s reading places it ahead of International Monetary Fund estimates for other big developed economies last year, a fillip for British Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of a national election on May 7.
But a bigger question looms as to whether 2014’s growth marks a temporary high point as the economy finally started to rebound strongly after years of sub-par growth following the financial crisis, or if it is part of a longer expansion.
The IMF forecasts growth of 2.7 percent for this year, though economists polled by Reuters on average predict a slight slowdown to 2.4 percent.
Tuesday’s data showed some loss of momentum, as growth in the last three months of 2014 fell to 0.5 percent from 0.7 percent in the third quarter of the year, a sharper slowdown than the 0.6 percent growth most private-sector economists had expected.
But the ONS’s chief economist, Joe Grice, said it was “too early to say” if this slowdown would persist.
“The dominant services sector remains buoyant while the contraction has taken place in industries like construction, mining and energy supply, which can be erratic,” he said.
