The GDP figure for the third quarter of 2011 has been revised upwards by the Office for National Statistics today.

GDP grew by 0.6 per cent in the three months to the end of September, up from an initial estimate of 0.5 per cent.

Output in the production industries rose by 0.2 per cent, down from 0.5 per cent and output in the service industries saw growth of 0.7 per cent, unchanged from before.

There was positive news for the construction industry as the figure was changed from 0.2 per cent contraction to a 0.3 per cent growth.

However, this was still much lower than the 3.1 per cent growth in the second quarter of 2011.

The biggest contributor to growth, the business services and finance sector, was revised upwards from 0.8 per cent to 1.2 per cent.

This was the strongest quarterly increase for business services and finance for four years.

The biggest contributors within the sector were finance and insurance and professional, scientific and technical activities.

The ONS report stated: “The latest GDP data for the third quarter continues to indicate growth in all three approaches is quite concentrated in a small proportion of components and is not broadly based. The additional data that has been taken on since the second estimate of third quarter GDP has resulted in these key sources of growth changing slightly.

“Growth in the output approach is very much concentrated in the service industries, within which it is primarily driven by the scientific, administration and support and financial and insurance service industries.”