THE UK economy’s lacklustre start to the year is expected to continue as flagging industrial production and construction output drags on second-quarter growth.
Economists expect an expansion in GDP of 0.3 per cent between April and June when official figures are released on Wednesday.
It would mark a slight improvement on first-quarter growth of 0.2 per cent for the UK as a whole when the services sector stuttered as inflation dealt a blow to consumer spending.
Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to forecasting group EY Item Club said: “It looks odds-on that whatever growth the UK managed to eke out in the second quarter will have been solely due to the services sector.
“This does appear to have seen some pick-up in activity after a particularly weak first quarter performance.
“However, industrial production and, especially, construction output both fell month-on-month in April and May, and were clearly on course for contraction over the second quarter.
“We suspect industrial production could have contracted by around 0.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter while construction output may have fallen by around 1.7 per cent.
“This will obviously have held back UK GDP growth in the second quarter.”
The second-quarter update comes after a series of downgrades from economists who are anticipating GDP to slow as Brexit approaches.
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