Revised government statistics dampen recovery hopes
With news that the Office for National Statistics has today revised the fall in construction output for the first quarter of 2009, there are real concerns of the UK economy is performing worse than previously thought. The construction output figure for the first quarter of 2009 has been revised from fall of 2.4% to a fall of 9% which in itself would knock a further 0.3 percentage points off GDP for the first quarter of the year.
The Office for National Statistics has come in for severe criticism over the last few months after a number of errors and a number of announcements were later revised. Analysts are now finding it harder and harder to produce estimates for the future which they themselves believe and can convince others to follow. While we have yet to see a revision of the GDP fall in the first quarter of 2009 the longer the authorities leave this the more rumour and counter rumour we will see circulating.
It seems as though the UK economy is taking one step forward and two steps back at the moment with a raft of hopeful reports quashed by statistic revisions and downbeat statements from an array of leading figures in industry.
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