The British economy braked sharply in the third quarter when growth slowed to 0.4%, the weakest pace for over a year, as a string of interest rate rises took effect, official figures show today.
Growth in gross domestic product slowed from a quarterly rate of 0.9% seen in the second quarter of the year.
GDP rose by 3% in the three months to September from the same period of the previous year, according to a preliminary estimate from the National Statistics office. That compared with a 3.6% pace seen in the second quarter of the year - the fastest for almost four years.
A raft of soft economic data in recent weeks has raised expectations that the Bank of England will leave interest rates unchanged at 4.75% for at least another month.
The UK central bank has hiked the cost of borrowing by a quarter point five times since November in an attempt to curb inflationary pressures stemming from consumer spending, booming house prices and above-trend economic growth.
The third quarter was the first since the first three months of 2003 - when the economy grew a modest 0.2% - that the economy has not grown above its trend rate on a quarterly basis.
The statistics office said the slower growth during the third quarter was mainly the result of a 1.1% fall in the output of the production industries following an increase of 1.2% in the second quarter.
The main influences behind the quarterly decline were output falls in manufacturing output and mining and quarrying. These more than offset increases in electricity, gas and water supply.
Industrial production accounts for around 22% of British economic output. Service sector output, which accounts for around 72% of economic activity, held up better though, increasing by 0.8%, just slightly lower than the 0.9% recorded in the second quarter.
