LONDON, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Britain's gross domestic product (GDP) growth during the first quarter of this year stood at a disappointing 0.2 percent, revised down in official figures from a preliminary estimate by economists of 0.3 percent.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures released Thursday reveal a weaker growth in the dominant services sector, which accounts for more than three quarters of the economy and whose growth had been driven by strong consumer spending over the past few years.
Net trade dropped 1.4 percentage points as exports fell by 1.6 percent on the previous quarter and imports rose by 2.7 percent.
But the fall in exports, driven largely by erratic factors rather than deterioration in the underlying net trade position, may restore itself in figures for the second quarter.
Predictions in the wake of the Brexit referendum last year that businesses would hesitate to invest in Britain due to uncertainty about its future trading relations were unsupported by the statistics, which saw a 0.6 percent rise in business investment.
Samuel Tombs, a chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, told Xinhua that the revision down in GDP figures reflected "a sharper slowdown in consumer-facing sectors than previously thought".
"Sterling depreciation has had an overall negative impact on the economy's performance. Households' real spending increased by just 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter, the smallest increase since the final quarter of 2014," said Tombs.
Sterling fell in the immediate aftermath of Britain's referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU) last June from a high of 1.48 U.S. dollars, touching a low of 1.15 dollars and now trading at 1.29 dollars, a decrease of 11.95 percent in a year.
This has driven up import costs and the costs of raw materials for manufacturers, while also making Britain's exports more competitive.
The sterling fall has also been directly felt in inflation, with consumer price index rising from 0.5 percent last June to 2.7 percent in April. This is ahead of wage settlements meaning that households and consumers now have a shrinking income.
"Households also appear to have reduced their saving rate to a new record low to fund extra spending, because the 1 percent rise in spending in nominal terms exceeded the 0.6 percent rise in employees' compensation," said Tombs.
"As a result, households have compromised their ability to fund further increases in spending over the coming quarters, when their real incomes will be coming under even more pressure from high inflation."
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