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U.K. Economy Grew 0.5% in First Quarter on Services Rebound

27 April 2011 14:24 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Britainâ€™s economy rebounded in the first quarter by enough to erase the contraction of the previous three months on the strongest surge in service-industry growth for four years, Bloomberg reported.

Gross domestic product rose 0.5 percent from the final quarter of 2010, when it fell by the same amount, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The result matched the median forecast of 28 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Services expanded by 0.9 percent, the most since 2006.

The economyâ€™s production level has returned to where it was before the fourth quarter, when the coldest December in a century disrupted business across the country. Bank of England officials are split on whether growth is strong enough to withstand the biggest fiscal squeeze since World War II, allowing them to remove stimulus to fight inflation.