Roundup: Upward revision of British GDP underlines continued robust growth path

The upward revision of Britain's GDP on Thursday underlined the continued robustness of a recovery which has been underway since the beginning of 2013 and showed no sign of ending.

Back then Britain was struggling to achieve growth while many other G7 nations were already on track to recover ground lost during the financial crisis and its aftermath.

As British economy is open and has a better-developed financial sector, it was hit hard in post 2008. British GDP declined by 4.3 percent in 2009 while France, with a similar-sized developed economy, declined by 2.9 percent.

Recovery was slower too with Britain's GDP growing by just 0.7 percent in 2012.

But in 2013, the growth rate was 2.2 percent and 2.9 percent in 2014 , the highest among G7 nations.

However, continued austerity in government spending, lackluster growth in the eurozone and a global recovery at risk from geopolitical uncertainties brought problems. The recovery has slowed down in 2015.

But the Office for National Statistics revised up the year-on-year growth in the final quarter last year from 1.9 percent to 2.1 percent, on the back of a further upward revision of Q4 growth to 0.6 percent.

Further revisions to 2015 Q1 data resulted in a revised growth rate of 2.3 percent.

Elizabeth Martins, economist at HSBC in London, wrote in a note that the revision was "welcome good news in the current period of uncertainty".

Martins added: "However, the old imbalances remained very much in place: private consumption remains the driver of growth, with the current account ballooning to a high of 7 percent of GDP, and the savings rate dropping to a low of 3.8 percent."

In addition, business investment fell 2 percent quarter-on-quarter in Q4 2015 which, according to Martins, suggest that concerns around the June referendum may already have been weighing on growth. Endit