UK economic recovery picks up speed

LONDON, Apr 29 (AFP): Britain's economic recovery picked up further speed in the first quarter, official data showed on Tuesday, boosting the coalition government one year before the country's next general election.

The economy has expanded for five successive quarters, but has struggled to return to the levels of output witnessed before the 2008 global financial crisis.

Nevertheless it is outperforming other major economies, helped by state austerity, a pick-up in bank lending, and policies by the government and the Bank of England that have helped to support the country's employment and housing markets.

Gross domestic product -- a measure of all goods and services produced by a nation's economy -- grew by 0.8 per cent in the first three months of 2014 compared with the fourth quarter of last year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a preliminary estimate on Tuesday that could be revised.

That was higher than the 0.7-per cent expansion experienced in the final three months of 2013, but undershot market expectations for GDP growth of 0.9 per cent.

The ONS added that GDP was 3.1-per cent higher in the first quarter compared with the equivalent period of 2013. That was the best year-on-year growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2007.

Finance minister George Osborne, a member of the Conservative party that heads a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, hailed Tuesday's data but vowed to maintain his austerity policies that are aimed at slashing Britain's huge deficit.