Britain's economy grew faster than first estimated in 2003, expanding by 2.3 per cent, official figures showed today, in news that will cheer Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Gordon Brown.
The Office for National Statistics said the fourth-quarter rate was unchanged at 0.9 per cent on the quarter but the year-on-year rate was now 2.8 per cent, up from the 2.5 per cent it estimated last month.
This was the strongest since the fourth quarter of 2000.
Brown had originally forecast in last year's budget that the economy would grow by 2.0 to 2.5 per cent in 2003, a forecast that widely viewed as optimistic by independent economists at the time.
But the latest figure puts the growth rate slap bang in the middle of Brown's forecast range and compares with the 2.1 per cent rate he predicted in his pre-budget report in December and the ONS reported last month.
The ONS said the upward revision to the fourth-quarter annual growth rate was due to the year's growth as a whole being revised up, in turn due to stronger estimates of exports of services, notably communications, insurance and other business servies, and household expenditure.