UK economic growth accelerated in the first quarter, according to an advanced reading by the government, but the pace of expansion was slightly slower than experts predicted.

The UK economy is showing more signs of stability into this year, thanks to the Bank of England’s ultra-loose monetary policy, which continues to support lending to consumers and businesses struggling to shrug off repercussions of the late financial crisis.

Gross Domestic Product rose 0.8% in the first quarter of 2013, compared with 0.7% growth in the three months ended December 2013, the London-based office for National Statistics office (ONS) said Tuesday.

Analysts called for a median estimate of 0.9% growth.

The annual GDP figure accelerated sharply to 3.1 percent from 2.7 percent growth recorded a year earlier, also slightly trailing analyst’ forecast of 3.2% growth.

This is the fifth quarter of growth for the UK economy, which is still kind of upbeat since many experts believed the widespread flooding across parts of Britain in February would hammer output. But the impact of the cold weather turned to be quite mild after all.

‘There was some evidence to suggest construction output was affected by the storms and high rainfall in January and February. However, over the quarter, the storms have not had a significant impact on GDP growth in Q1 2014 and ONS has not classified them as a statistical special event,’ the ONS said.

The report showed that output increased in three of the four main industrial groupings within the economy in the first quarter, compared with the three months ending December.

Services contributed the most, with output growing by 0.9%. In Production, output grew 0.8%, while 0.3% in construction. However, output decreased by 0.7% in agriculture.

Source: Action Forex