By David Milliken
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s economy shrank fractionally less than previously estimated in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the government to require many businesses to stop face-to-face operations, revised data suggested on Monday.
The Office for National Statistics said it now estimated that Britain’s economy shrank by 10.9% rather than 11.0% in 2020, based on ongoing work for its annual “Blue Book” set of revisions to data, which are published in full on Oct. 31.
British gross domestic product (GDP) still fell more than in any of the other large, advanced economies in the Group of Seven (G7) in 2020, although differences in how public-sector output and other areas were measured during the pandemic mean the figures are not exactly comparable.
Spain, which is not in the G7, recorded an 11.3% fall in GDP in 2020, while G7 member Italy had a 9.0% decline, according to International Monetary Fund data.
Separate ONS data published on Friday showed British economic output in the first quarter of 2023 was still 0.5% lower than in the final quarter of 2019 – alongside Germany, the joint-weakest recovery of any G7 economy.
Revisions were also made to annual growth rates going back to 1998, although only two years in that period saw revisions of more than 0.2 percentage points: 2016, where growth was revised down to 1.9% from 2.2%, and 2001, where growth was revised up to 2.6% from 2.2%.
Britain’s average annual growth rate for the period 2010 to 2019 was unchanged at 1.9%, while for the 1998 to 2007 it was revised up to 2.8% from 2.7%.
In March, the British government’s Office for Budget Responsibility estimated the country’s medium-term potential growth rate was 1.75%.
(Reporting by David Milliken, editing by Andy Bruce)
