Britain's economy grew faster than first estimated in 2003, expanding by 2.3%, according to the latest official figures.
The Office for National Statistics said the fourth-quarter rate was unchanged at 0.9% on the quarter but the year-on-year rate was now 2.8%, up from the 2.5% it estimated last month. This was the strongest since the fourth quarter of 2000.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, had originally forecast in last year's budget that the economy would grow by 2-2.5% in 2003, a forecast that widely viewed as optimistic by independent economists at the time.
But the latest figure puts the growth rate slap bang in the middle of Brown's forecast range and compares with the 2.1% rate he predicted in his pre-budget report in December and the ONS reported last month.
The ONS said the upward revision to the fourth-quarter annual growth rate was due to the year's growth as a whole being revised up, in turn due to stronger estimates of exports of services, notably communications, insurance and other business servies, and household expenditure.
