High Level Summary of Statistics Trend
GDP Growth: UK Comparison
Annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates for Scotland and the UK are calculated on a rolling four quarters on four quarters basis. As data sources and the methods used in the measurement of GDP improve, and therefore allow the statistical error of previous estimates to be reduced, the statistics will at times need to be revised.
The chart below shows annual GDP growth rates (calculated on a 4 quarters on 4 quarters basis) for Scotland and the UK. Over the year to 2011Q2 GDP in Scotland increased by 1.1%, whilst UK GDP increased by 1.5% - this resulted in a gap of 0.4 percentage points in favour of the UK. This compares to an annual increase in GDP to 2011Q1 of 1.4% in Scotland and an increase of 1.9% in the UK - resulting in a gap of 0.5 percentage points. Therefore, between 2011Q1 and 2011Q2 the gap between annual GDP growth rates in Scotland and the UK decreased by 0.1 percentage point in favour of Scotland.
Whilst GDP in 2011Q2 increased by 0.1% in both Scotland and the UK, the UK experienced higher growth in 2011Q1 and a smaller contraction in 2010Q4. This has contributed to the UK witnessing stronger overall GDP growth in the last four quarters and since moving out of recession. Since the trough in output during the recession (2009Q2 in both Scotland and the UK), GDP in Scotland had increased by 1.6% in 2011Q2. Whilst this compares to an increase of 2.7% in the UK over the same period, Scotland experienced a shallower recession compared to the UK with a peak to trough decline in GDP of 5.9% in Scotland compared to a fall of 7.2% in the UK.
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Source: Scottish Government, ONS
(1) To note that growth rates, and therefore the gap in growth rates, are calculated using unrounded numbers, but are only presented to 1 decimal place.