UK economy grows by 0.6 pct in quarter ending Feb.

The British economy grew by 0.6 percent in the three months to the end of February, the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said Wednesday.

The continued strong growth recorded by NIESR is a slight improvement on the figure of 0.5 percent GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2014 recorded in official figures.

Jack Meaning, research fellow at the London-based think-tank, told Xinhua, "The 0.6 percent growth is mostly being driven by private services, so it is still the services industry which is driving the UK economy. The manufacturing side and the production side have been growing on a year-on-year basis, but on a monthly basis, they have been weakening in the last few months."

Growth in the UK economy remains strong, said Meaning, because of strong and increasing household consumption.

Meaning said, "We were expecting that to start to weaken this year but the fall in oil prices has acted to boost that back up again so we see the growth going on now is from increased purchasing power of households, and of households going out and spending that money."

Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) in the country was 1.7 percent in February last year, but has fallen to 0.3 percent this January, according to the latest set of data released by the Office of Natonal Statistics.

Nominal wage growth remains relatively subdued but real incomes have risen purely because inflation has surprised on the downside, said Meaning.

"This is not as preferable a way of getting wage increases as increasing productivity," said Meaning. Endit