UK economy doesn’t budge for April

New data by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has reported that the monthly real gross domestic product (GDP) in the UK showed no growth for the month of April, despite seeing a subtle 0.4 percent increase in March.

Real GDP, meanwhile, was estimated to have grown 0.7 percent in the three months to April 2024, compared with the three months to January 2024.

While the services sector saw a 0.2 percent growth over April, production and construction outputs fell by 0.9 and 1.4 percent, respectively.

In the three months to April, consumer-facing services grew 0.2 percent, with retail trade being one of the main drivers of growth, as output rose 0.7 percent. This was only topped by personal services, which saw a 2.6 percent increase.

For the month, however, this overarching category dropped 0.7 percent, with retail trade falling 2.3 percent over April.

This was already reflected in an earlier retail sales report from ONS, in which it was noted that the drop was largely due to non-food stores where sales volumes fell 4.1 percent.

The organisation cited wet weather as one of the core reasons behind the decline, yet ONS remained optimistic for the months ahead.