British growth slows to 0.2% in second quarter

Britain’s economy slowed sharply in the second quarter, posting growth of only 0.2 per cent after 0.5 per cent in the first, official data showed yesterday, confirming an initial reading.

“Gross Domestic Product increased by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2011, following an increase of 0.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2011,” the Office for National Statistics said in a statement.

The data was unchanged from an initial estimate published in July.

The ONS also said that GDP grew by 0.7 per cent compared with the second quarter of 2010, unchanged from the initial estimate.

There was little movement for sterling or on the London stock market following the data which matched analysts’ expectations.

The ONS maintained its reasons for the slower quarter-on-quarter growth, which it said were a series of one-off events including a public holiday for the royal wedding.

Most workers in Britain did not work on April 29, the day of Prince William’s marriage to Catherine Middleton. Also during the second quarter, British manufacturing was hit by a shortage of parts arriving from earthquake-hit Japan.

“As was widely expected, the preliminary estimate of a 0.2 per cent quarterly rise in GDP in the second quarter was unrevised, confirming that the economic recovery had little momentum heading into the third quarter,” said Samuel Tombs, an economist at Capital Economics research group.

“The small downward revision to industrial production in the second quarter was not large enough on its own to drag down the overall growth rate of the economy,” he added.