25 May 2010 Last updated at 05:14 ET

UK economic growth revised up to 0.3%

Declan Curry explains just what GDP stands for, and why we should care

The UK economy grew slightly faster than initially estimated in the first three months of the year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.

The economy grew by a revised 0.3% between January and March, up from the original estimate of 0.2%.

Output was boosted after a strong rebound in industrial production and business services.

Year-on-year, output was down 0.2%, although this was also revised up from the original estimate of a 0.3% fall.

Rebalancing

GDP

• Gross domestic product
• A measure of a country's economic activity, namely of all the services and goods produced in a year

• Q&A: What is GDP?
• Economy tracker: GDP

Although the quarterly figure has been revised up, it is still lower than the 0.4% growth seen in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The revisions were in line with analysts' expectations following the release of strong industrial output data for March.

Industrial output was revised up to 1.2% growth in the quarter, from the previous estimate of 0.7% growth.

Manufacturing output was revised up to show a rise of 1.2% from a rise of 0.7%.

However, household spending showed no growth in the quarter.

"The key underlying message here is that we are seemingly seeing some rebalancing away from consumer spending towards industrial production," said Adam Chester from Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets.

"A welcome sign of rebalancing, but as yet it's early days. Of course what this number doesn't take into account is the fallout from the events we have seen in Europe over the last few weeks."