{"id":38958,"date":"2026-04-16T07:54:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T06:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/south-west\/news\/38958-gdp-data-shows-uk-economy-was-growing-strongly-before-iran-war\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T08:07:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T07:07:32","slug":"gdp-data-shows-uk-economy-was-growing-strongly-before-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/south-west\/news\/38958-gdp-data-shows-uk-economy-was-growing-strongly-before-iran-war","title":{"rendered":"GDP data shows UK economy was growing strongly before Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UK economy expanded by 0.5% in February, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), well ahead of the 0.1% increase that City analysts had forecast.<\/p>\n<p>The ONS&#8217;s GDP data showed services and production each recorded 0.5% growth, while construction posted a stronger 1.0% rise during the month.<\/p>\n<p>Figures for January have also been revised upwards, now showing modest growth of 0.1% rather than the flat reading previously reported.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>GDP data for the previous year, showing the contributions of services, production and construction:<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_38960\" style=\"width: 1090px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38960\" class=\"size-full wp-image-38960\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/_files\/images\/apr_26\/Screenshot-2026-04-16-080300-e1776323042658.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1080\" height=\"697\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-38960\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Credit: ONS)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The February increase is the largest since before the 2024 general election. This additional momentum in the economy would usually be welcomed and lead to a more confident forecast for the months ahead, but the war in Iran and its impact on energy prices as well as wider uncertainty has hit the global economy.<\/p>\n<p>The IMF this week slashed its forecast for UK growth this year to 0.8%, down from a previous estimate of 1.3%.<\/p>\n<p>Deutsche Bank\u2019s chief economist Sanjay Raja said:\u00a0&#8220;The good news is that the UK likely entered the energy shock on a stronger footing than many expected. Q1-26 GDP growth will likely hit more than double the quarterly rate many forecasters expected, also lifting annual GDP growth projections. The bad news is that upward GDP momentum won\u2019t last. This will likely be the growth before the energy squeeze.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But better-than-expected February performance already feels out of date<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120782],"coauthors":[81],"class_list":["post-38958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","tag-featured-story","tag-national"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>GDP data shows UK economy was growing strongly before Iran war - South West<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/south-west\/news\/38958-gdp-data-shows-uk-economy-was-growing-strongly-before-iran-war\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GDP data shows UK economy was growing strongly before Iran war - 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