British quarterly economic growth revised down to 0.2pc

LONDON: Britain's economic growth slowed by more than expected in the first quarter, revised official data showed on Thursday and ahead of the country's general election.

Two weeks before Britons head to the polls in what is widely seen as a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit strategy, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gross domestic product growth stood at 0.2 percent in the first three months of 2017 compared with the final quarter of last year.

That was the weakest quarter-on-quarter growth in a year.

An initial estimate provided by the ONS in April had put first-quarter GDP output growth at 0.3 percent. Output in the fourth quarter of 2016 had stood at 0.7 percent.

"UK GDP growth in quarter one 2017 has been revised down by 0.1 percentage points from the preliminary estimate... mainly due to broad-based downward revisions within the services sector," the ONS said in its statement.

While Britain's economy has performed better than expected since the country voted last year for Brexit, recent data nevertheless pointed to weaker growth as the country negotiates its exit from the European Union.

One concern is that rising inflation, caused in large part by weak sterling pushing up import costs, could see the Bank of England move to raise record-low interest rates faster than expected.

"With inflation outstripping wage growth, households will feel a squeeze on their spending power this year which is likely to limit consumer spending somewhat," Oliver Kolodseike, senior economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said following the release of Thursday's data.

"We have already seen the impact to some extent as reflected in a particularly poor performance in retail sales over the first quarter."

May is meanwhile forecast to strengthen her Conservative Party's parliamentary majority in the June 8 election.