UK manufacturing output dives in March

British manufacturing output fell at its sharpest rate in nearly three years in March, official data showed yesterday, suggesting the economy slowed sharply in the first quarter of the year.

The Office for National Statistics said manufacturing production fell by 1.6 per cent in March.

Overall industrial production fell by 1.2 per cent. Analysts had forecast that manufacturing production would firm by 0.1 per cent on the month and industrial production would tick up 0.2 per cent.

The ONS said the 0.7 per cent quarterly decline in industrial production compared with an estimate of a fall of 0.1 per cent that had fed into the preliminary GDP report.

As a result, the new data could knock 0.13 percentage points off the 0.6 per cent estimate for Q1 GDP.

Separately, the ONS said factory gate prices rose 0.7 per cent on the month in April.